Cortina downhill canceled again

FIS officials Atle Skaardal and Markus Mayr discuss the slope in Cortina (GEPA/Harald Steiner)

For the second day in a row, the FIS canceled the women’s downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. The snow has been unrelenting, and officials wasted little time before nixing the race Sunday morning (Jan. 19).

The storm, which began Friday morning, scratched the final downhill training day and continued through the night forcing the jury to bump Saturday’s race to Sunday. When the storm did not let up and longterm forecasts projected snow to continue throughout the day Sunday, the race jury canceled the weekend completely.

“It’s hard to complain about snow with the situation at home in California… But I just wanna race,” Stacey Cook tweeted to followers.

Snow is expected in Cortina through Tuesday. Next weekend, the mountain is again expected to host speed races, which were moved from Garmisch-Partenkirchen due to a lack of snow in the German resort.

The new schedule for the coming week is to hold all four races after a single downhill training run on Wednesday (Jan. 22). The super Gs are slated for Thursday and Sunday with two downhill races in between on Friday and Saturday.

The women’s GS and SL races scheduled in Maribor, Slovenia will be held at an alternate location due to lack of snow. The FIS will confirm on Wednesday (Jan. 22) whether the Feb. 1-2 races can be moved to Kranjska Gora. Upcoming men’s races scheduled for Garmisch-Partenkirchen have already been moved to St. Moritz, Switzerland, with downhill on Feb. 1 and GS on Feb. 2.