Défago has already "shortened" the descent of the Matterhorn: "We will have 1000 meters less, I'm not afraid for the athletes"

The Olympic champion, who is designing the historic trans-national route, which will become shorter than the Lauberhorn, speaks to the "Blick". Franz Julen himself reassures: "In November it is a feasible race in terms of weather".

Wednesday 18 August 2021 4 minutes reading time

We continue to talk about the great news that the World Cup could welcome within a couple of years, namely the "Speed Opening" on the Matterhorn, for a descent (but it would also be competing in super-g) that would be the first to involve two nations, Switzerland and Italy, and should have become the longest in the world, exceeding 4.5 km of the Lauberhorn of Wengen. It would be precisely because the "Blick", in today's piece signed by Marcel W. Perren, explains how the manager on behalf of the FIS, the Olympic downhill champion in Vancouver 2010, Didier Défago, has already opted for a cut with respect to the '' idea of the original route, which will start from an altitude of 3899 meters to arrive at Laghi Cime Bianche (2814 meters above sea level). “I have shortened the track by 1000 meters, we will reach a travel time of around 2 '' 20. The concern of the athletes? There will not be many strokes of smoothness as they say, fifteen seconds representing something less than in Kitzbuehel or Beaver Creek ”. In recent days, the same Dominik Paris and Beat Feuz had expressed themselves in the Swiss newspaper fearing an exaggerated length, with relative enormous effort, also considering a start at an altitude of almost 4000 meters. Franz Julen himself, president of the Zermatt Bergbahnen Board of Directors and one of the fathers of the project, which involves the various plant companies, regions and Swiss and Italian federations, wished to reassure the sustainability of the project from every point of view: "The Long-term meteorological statistics show us that November is very stable in terms of time and this project also meets the highest environmental demands, as much of the infrastructure already exists. Tourists are skiing on 95% of the track, so only very minor adjustments are needed, no forest will be cleared. Two thirds of the route is on a glacier, so we can benefit from a lot of natural snow. If artificial snow is needed on the final stretch, this can be produced by an already existing system ".

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