Heavy snowfall postpones women’s World Cup slalom in Courchevel, GS canceled

World Cup races scheduled to take place in France in early December were canceled due to lack of snow, now the snow is coming down too fast.

A women’s World Cup slalom slated for today (Dec. 17) in Courchevel, France has been postponed until tomorrow and the giant slalom intended to run Sunday has been called off.

This is the second time the weekend’s program has been altered due to the copious amounts of snow falling in the French Alps. On Thursday, organizers swapped the races days, pushing the slalom from Sunday to today in hopes that course crews could keep up with clearing the shorter course as snow fell at the rate of more than two feet a day for the last two days.  

“All that was possible was done. Great thanks to the team here in Courchevel. But unfortunately we could not run a World Cup level slalom race today,” said FIS Chief Women’s Race Director Atle Skaardal in a fisalpine.com report.”It was an unanimous decision. Together with the OC, the coaches and the athletes representative, the jury decided to cancel the race for today Saturday. We will try with the slalom again on Sunday.”

“For the most part the course was in good, even great condition,” continued Skaardal. “However, there’re some ten gates at the entry to the steep part that were starting to break through already during the inspection. That could be dangerous and our main goal is to run a fair and safe race for all participants.”

Tomorrow’s redrawn schedule calls for the first run of the slalom to start at 9:30.

Image by Gepa