Industry News
Both Women’s FIS World Cup Super-G races scheduled for this weekend at Val di Fassa, Italy, were canceled due to the recent snowfalls. The Val di Fassa ski area, located in the famous San Pellegrino area, saw 53 cm (21 inches) of snow in the last 48 hours.
The Local Organization Committee (LOC) has given it everything to make the event happen, using groomers to clear the snow and even manually shoveling snow off the piste, but it was simply too much snow in too short a time frame to ensure a safe race.
Snow for ski racing needs to be very firm and is typically prepared weeks in advance to ensure the right firmness and compactness. A World Cup run cannot be compared to a run groomed for recreational skiing, Snow needs to be very firm to allow ski racers to edge safely. Snow is typically plowed like a field in order to take air pockets out of the snow. This work is typically done weeks and months in advance, to ensure a hard snow cover of at least 20 inches. The LOC can treat a run fairly last minute with water or salt to change the consistency but this will only work on a run that has been prepped weeks and weeks in advance. Therefore the only option for a safe race was to clear all the new snow that fell but as it kept snowing, it simply was not possible to clear the entire race course in time.
The next speed races will be held in Kvitfjell, Norway, where a Downhill and a Super-G will be held on March 2-3.
