WENGEN 2005: Lauberhorn races underway in SwitzerlandFor the 75th time, the prestigious and quirky Lauberhorn race is underway, with the first training run taking place today at Wengen. All this week, www.skiracing.com will be on site, reporting everything you could want to know about this spectacular race.

This year's Lauberhornrennen will consists of a combined on Friday, a downhill on Saturday and a slalom of Sunday. The final training run is tomorrow.

Friday's combined will be the first time the FIS World Cup tries a new format for that event. Instead of a downhill and two slalom runs, the race will be one run of slalom, followed by a shortened downhill. The FIS is calling this new format a "Super Combination," and has posted the exact rules at their website.

Saturday's race will take place on the famous Lauberhorn track, the longest downhill in the world (today's training run was 2:20.11 for the fastest skier). According to race organizers, several "gentle renovations" to the course have been made for purposes of safety.



Franz fastest in training run; Rahlves shows up
Werner Franz of Austria won today's training run, with Hermann Maier coming in second. American Daron Rahlves, who has podiumed but never won here, was too sore to make the descent, but appeared in the start shack anyway, clicking the wand open to complete the formality necessary for race qualification. Rahlves is sore from his crash yesterday at nearby Adelboden, a picture of which made the front page of Switzerland's largest German-speaking daily, Blick.


Anniversary celebration
This is the 75th running of the Wengen races, official called the International Lauberhornrennen. As part of that celebration, organizers are promoting a book called "Lauberhorn - Story of a Myth," produced this year by a Zurich publishing house. Visit www.as-verlag.ch for more.