Aspen, free ride suspended and then cancelled after 24 descents

Aspen, results

Race cancelled after 24 descents. That was the verdict of the jury after more than an hour of trying to complete the first of two downhills in Aspen. That the weather was turning bad had been clear from the very beginning, when after the first five to six runs darkness had descended on the Colorado slope and none of the athletes could improve on the time of No. 1, Norway’s Adrien Sejersted, who had come down in 1’31″24, with the sun.

The wind was beating the track first at the top, then everywhere. As if that were not enough, a heavy snowfall had also begun, which had slowed down the course more, but above all made the athletes’ descent unsafe.

None of those crossing the finish line could understand how they had lost so much time on the track.

Only Vincent kriechmayr had managed with number 7 to come within 26 cents of Sejersted, while Cochran was at 60.

After Christof Innerhofer’s descent, also ended up off the track, and after a quick meeting of the athletes at the start, the right decision: to cancel the race, which of course will not be recovered.

At this point, with only two downhill runs to go, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde has the Specialty Cup in his pocket with 620 points, against Vincent Kriechmayr’s 464, just as Odermatt is virtually certain to have won the Overall Cup with 1466 points against Kilde’s own 1080.

For Saturday, the program includes another downhill, starting at 7 p.m. (Italian time), while a super-G is scheduled for Sunday at 6 p.m.