Lenzerheide: Kernen, Dalcin injured in spills

By Published On: March 14th, 2007Comments Off on Lenzerheide: Kernen, Dalcin injured in spills

Bruno Kernen broke his nose, tore knee ligaments and had a concussion after crashing Wednesday in the season-ending World Cup downhill.
LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland — Bruno Kernen broke his nose, tore knee ligaments and had a concussion after crashing Wednesday in the season-ending World Cup downhill.
    Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin of France also crashed and dislocated his shoulder.
    The 34-year-old Kernen badly landed a jump coming out of a turn in the lower section of the Silvano Beltrametti course and went careening through two layers of safety netting.
    The Swiss skier, who also twisted his neck and had several bruises, was airlifted to a hospital and will spend the night, Swiss team spokeswoman Kristina Schneider said. He will be out of action for at least four weeks.
    The downhill bronze medalist at the Torino Olympics and 1997 world champion is a 15-year veteran of the World Cup circuit. At the recent World Championships in Are, Sweden, Kernen won bronze in the super G. He also took bronze in the downhill at the worlds in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 2003.
    Kernen has three career World Cup victories, all in the downhill.
    “It was obviously a terrible accident,” Swiss teammate Beat Feuz said. “It’s very unfortunate.”
    After the race resumed, only two skiers managed to complete their runs before Dalcin lost control on a steep section and slammed through the netting. He was also airlifted to the hospital.
    “'We do not have problems with the nets,” said Lenzerheide press chief Reto Kueng, responding to criticism. “All the nets were controlled before and fulfilled the FIS standards. There was not a problem with the nets with Bruno Kernen.
    “There was a slight problem with Dalcin — because of the melting of the snow he slipped under the first net,” Kueng admitted. “The first net ripped but the second net stopped him.”
    The Silvano Beltrametti course was named after the young Swiss ski racer who was paralyzed in a high-speed crash during a World Cup downhill at Val d’Isere, France, in 2001, when he lost control and hurtled into the safety netting, landing in the forest behind.
    Following Beltrametti’s accident, safety standards for netting were strengthened. A so-called slip-screen is now installed at the bottom of the fencing and is thicker and tougher to break through.
    The downhill course, which Beltrametti had a hand in designing following his accident, is steep and fast, and has little snow coverage, making it bumpy and difficult.
    An unusually high number of skiers missed gates in both the men’s and women’s downhill training sessions the previous days.

— The Associated Press

Share This Article

About the Author: Pete Rugh