Défago presents "his" descent on the Matterhorn: "There will be big jumps, Paris will like it"

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The former Swiss downhill skier, commissioned by the FIS to design the long-awaited route on the glacier between Switzerland and Italy, revealed the details at the Blick. "How difficult I would compare it to Val Gardena".

Tuesday 24 August 2021 4 minutes reading time

There is a lot of talk about it and the project goes on smoothly, at least according to what was declared by the protagonists who have been working on the “Speed Opening” on the Matterhorn for some time. The first trans-national descent in the history of the World Cup is about to become a reality and Didier Défago, the one who designed the race track that goes from an altitude of 3899 meters south of the Piccolo Cervino (on Swiss territory), up to 2814 of Laghi Cime Bianche, or rather on Italian snows, talked about it in detail at the “Blick”. The 2010 Vancouver Olympic champion had already announced a cut of about 1000 meters in length for a course that will therefore be slightly shorter than the Lauberhorn in Wengen, around 4 km for a duration of about 2''20 ", more" human "as the athletes had already asked specifically, above all Beat Feuz and Dominik Paris. "I'm sure this descent will suit Domme particularly well - explained the former Swiss downhill skier - The race will start with some long corners, then after the start of the super-g (it should be remembered that the idea also includes a double super-g, male and female, for the opening of the speed season in the 2023/24 vintage) there will be a jump and a crossbar that will lead to a sliding stretch of about fifteen seconds ". Défago continues: “The second half of the route (and we will already be in Italy, ed) will therefore begin with the technically more demanding stretch, in which the slope becomes increasingly steep. There will then be two other really important jumps and, overall, these characteristics lead me to say that it will be a more challenging descent than Lake Louise, whose level of difficulty can be comparable to Saslong, in Val Gardena. Of course, the altitude factor will be a challenge for the athletes, but I repeat that it is manageable ”.

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