Weather causes more trouble in Zermatt-Cervinia as women’s downhill World Cup race cancelled for second successive day

Published 19/11/2023 at 11:49 GMT

Disaster has struck at the women’s downhill season-opening weekend in Zermatt-Cervinia as strong winds have forced Sunday’s race to be cancelled. It is the second successive day that extreme weather conditions have impacted the race, which was also cancelled on Saturday. Race director Peter Gerdol confirmed to Eurosport over the weekend that pushing the race back to Monday was not an option.

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The women’s downhill World Cup race in Zermatt-Cervinia has been cancelled for a second successive day as strong winds continue to hit the slopes in Switzerland.

Extreme weather conditions meant Saturday’s race was a non-starter and race organisers remained hopeful that Sunday’s event could go ahead as the weather showed signs of improvement.

But once again, the conditions were deemed too strong for any action and the season-opening opening downhill races will not go ahead this weekend.

Zermatt-Cervinia

Racing ‘not possible’ as World Cup event cancelled in Zermatt-Cervinia - ‘Extremely strong wind’

00:01:24

18/11/2023 at 11:00

In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), FIS Alpine wrote: “Due to strong wind gusts the jury together with the LOC decided to cancel today’s downhill.”

Race director Peter Gerdol confirmed that if Sunday’s race was to be cancelled, there was no option for it to take place on Monday.

“Monday is not an option,” he told Eurosport after Saturday’s cancelled race. “This was discussed in the last months, but we already decided it was not an option.”

Racing ‘not possible’ as World Cup event cancelled in Zermatt-Cervinia - ‘Extremely strong wind’

The first three men’s events of the season - two of which were at the Swiss resort in Zermatt-Cervinia - were also cancelled.

However, the action was finally able to get underway in Austria on Saturday as Manuel Feller led a dominating Austrian podium in the opening men's slalom race of the season.

Highlights: Feller wins as Austria take clean sweep of medals in Gurgl, Ryding just misses out

In the women’s discipline, riders will begin preparation for the giant slalom in Killington in the USA next weekend.

Lara Gut-Behrami equalled Tina Maze's achievement of winning three times in Solden, Austria to claim a Giant Slalom win in first World Cup event of the season.

Olympic champion Petra Vlhova was best in the following Slalom race in Finland two weeks later, as Mikaela Shiffrin finished fourth after a tricky start to the campaign.

A day later, however, Shiffrin managed to get on the board, capitalising on Vlhova’s error to claim the 89th slalom win of her career.

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