The first of two World Cup downhill runs in Cortina d’Ampezzo was characterized by several falls. They join an unsightly series this winter. Are there reasons for this?
Corinne Suter is out for the rest of the season with a torn cruciate ligament.
Christian Bruna / EPA
It reads like the “Who’s Who” of skiing. And yet it’s not a list anyone wants to be on: this season’s injury list. A turbulent first departure this weekend saw the addition of two more prominent names; by Mikaela Shiffrin and Corinne Suter, both of whom were transported by helicopter from the Olimpia delle Tofane slope in Cortina d’Ampezzo due to knee pain.
The 29-year-old Suter, who did not fall but braked immediately after landing after jumping and screamed in pain, tore her anterior cruciate ligament and injured the inner meniscus in her left knee. She will have an operation on Saturday morning at the Hirslanden Clinic in Zurich and will have to take a break for months. The team of overall World Cup leaders Shiffrin, however, gave a partial all-clear: Initial examinations had revealed no tears in the anterior cruciate ligament or the collateral ligaments. Michelle Gisin felt pain in her lower leg after her fall.
If Shiffrin were to be out for the rest of the season, Marco Odermatt would soon be the last remaining star of the ski circuit in the second half of the season. It’s hard to imagine that there has ever been a comparable number of failures by the best skiers in one winter. In the last four weeks, Marco Schwarz and the former overall World Cup winners Alexis Pinturault, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Petra Vlhova have been unavailable.
Intensive program and weakened drivers
Although the knee is the focus everywhere except Kilde, a common cause or a common problem cannot be identified for the serious injuries. For the men, after the four downhill cancellations at the beginning of the season, the intensive racing weeks in Val Gardena and Wengen, which arose from the catch-up races, were an issue. In retrospect, everyone in Wengen agreed that two training sessions and three speed races without a day off in between was too much. However, the drivers in particular put the criticism of the program into perspective: “At the beginning everyone was screaming for replacement races,” said Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr.
Overload was also an issue for Schwarz and Kilde: Kilde was sick during the Wengen week. It is questionable whether it was sensible to start all three races on the longest route in the World Cup in this condition. Likewise with Marco Schwarz, who had decided to be the only athlete to drive every race. If he were him, many would have skipped Bormio and taken a break. However, he said while still in the hospital that he would do everything exactly the same again. In the case of Pinturault and Shiffrin, driving errors were the cause of the crashes, although Shiffrin at least had slight doubts after her illness at the beginning of January.
After the only training session in Cortina, she posted on X (formerly Twitter) that returning to downhill skiing had been a shock to her system. “I had a few scary moments on the slopes.” The five-time overall World Cup winner competed in her last speed races in St. Moritz in mid-December and skipped the following ones. In general, she masters the balance between an intensive program and necessary breaks excellently and regularly skips races so as not to overtax her body.
So happy to be back in @cortinaSkiWcup because I love it here…although yesterday was a little bit of a shock to the system being back on DH skis, and I had a couple “scary” moments on the course (probably didn’t look as scary…(cont.) pic.twitter.com/02Pnr7VQc8
— Mikaela Shiffrin (@MikaelaShiffrin) January 25, 2024
Lara Gut-Behrami says: “Many are unsettled”
In Cortina, Shiffrin was one of twelve drivers who did not finish the race. Lara Gut-Behrami showed a strong ride, only beaten by the Austrian Stephanie Venier, and was on the podium in a downhill for the first time since last March. The turbulent race with the many failures also kept Gut-Behrami busy. In an interview with SRF, the 32-year-old tried to find reasons for the misery. This should not be seen as criticism, she said, but rather as an explanation for the “construction site” that they all have to overcome. “You think about so many things that you forget that skiing is the most important thing.”
You perfect your set-up, analyze every curve, have the feeling that you also have to train, even if you have two days off, and forget about recovery. “There are so many locations that many people are unsettled when they get to the start.” If, like this Friday in Cortina, the route is different than in training, faster, the jumps are further, you no longer have a plan. But you have to be ready every time, be able to react to everything, and drive with intuition and instinct. “Maybe that’s missing a little: you always want to risk everything, but you have to reach the goal first.”
The same tone was used by Federica Brignone, who also fell. «The route was perfect. We just got used to riding so many easy tracks that are like wide highways. So we have to adapt when we find a difficult route,” said the Italian.
Depending on how long Shiffrin is out, the overall World Cup could come down to a duel between Gut-Behrami and Brignone: In this ranking, the American is 340 points ahead of Gut-Behrami, with Brignone lurking another 82 points behind.
For Corinne Suter, the Tofana di Rozes remains a mountain of fate. In 2021 she became world champion in downhill and second in the World Championships in Super-G. In 2023 she had a serious fall here, suffered a concussion, among other things, and still stood on the World Cup podium in France three weeks later. Now she seriously injured herself here again. The route will come into focus again in 2026 – when Cortina will host the women’s Olympic ski races.