Alpine Skiingworld Cup
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The autumn meeting of the international federation, which took place in Zurich, officially opened the 2019/2020 season.
Sunday 6 October 2019 6 minutes reading time
In the series of events scheduled at the Hilton Hotel, the FIS had to define two very delicate situations in the context of the alpine skiing competition formats.
We are talking about parallel and combined tests, a specialty that has been at the center of discussions for some time now and that, finally, should have found a place in the medium to long term.
PARALLEL WITH CUP
The Stockholm defection causes the parallels for the men's sector to climb from three to two races, but a dedicated specialty cup will be assigned, thus "removing" the tests from the single giant and slalom rankings as instead happened in the last seasons .
He will compete in Alta Badia on December 23rd with the now classic parallel giant, replicated as a format on February 9th in Chamonix; the change concerns the double qualifying heat for the 32 athletes admitted to the race, which will then be reduced to 16 on the basis of the sum of the times which will then lead to direct clashes on the blue track and the red track. Contrary to what was originally planned, however, from the second round we will still see the challenges on dry heat (due to television requirements and zero downtimes) as happened in previous years' races on the Gran Risa, but not in city city events.
Situation that may lead, unfortunately, to having slight differences in the track as happens almost always in parallel races. The other novelty, taken for granted given the creation of a dedicated World Cup, is the creation of the PWSL, the start list for the discipline that will finally order the participation of the athletes in the various tests.
The women will have three specialty races available at the 2019/2020 World Cup: on December 15th with the parallel slalom at Sankt Moritz (on a track that has already been "tested" in recent years), on January 19th with the novelty of the giant parallel to the Sestriere and on March 12 with the parallel slalom of Are, which actually recovers Stockholm.
RELAUNCHING THE COMBINED
Even for the combined event there will be a specialty cup, but in this case it is not an absolute novelty compared to the past.
The difference lies in the attempt to raise both numerically (3 races for men, 4 for women), and in particular for the starting formula of the decisive round. Let's start from here: as already announced in recent weeks, we will start with the fast race (almost always the super-g), to then compete in the decisive slalom heat with starting order based on the result of the 1st run, without inversion. Translated: those who close the super-g in the morning in the head, will start first in slalom, just to rebalance the situation that sees the sprinters in great difficulty between the narrow poles, even more so with ruined track.
The scheduled races? The men's sector will begin on December 29th in Bormio on the Stelvio (super-g plus slalom), then on January 17th the great classic of Wengen, in this case with descent (shortened) on the Lauberhorn, and finally on March 1st the return to Hinterstoder , again with super-g heats combined with the slalom.
Women in the race instead four times, always with super-g and slalom provided in combination: December 22 in Val d''Isere, January 12 in Zauchensee, February 23 in Crans Montana and March 1 in La Thuile.
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