The Raptor rises

Proposed hybrid course

The new women’s downhill course at Beaver Creek is set to make its debut Nov. 29, but a change to the World Cup calendar has complicated matters for local organizers

BEAVER CREEK – If history is any indication, this month’s dress rehearsal for the 2015 World Alpine Ski Championships in Beaver Creek will go off without a hitch. The local organizing committee in the Vail Valley is widely regarded as the best in the world. But unfortunately they have no magic wand.

That’s what it would take to prepare two full-length World Cup downhill courses in the month of November. No one else in the world has ever done it, nor has anyone else in the world ever been asked to do it.

Beaver Creek initially intended to run the test events this fall on adjacent courses, as will be the case in 2015. But a June decision to modify the World Cup schedule made that impossible. The women’s event was originally scheduled to run the second week of December, a week after the men’s races, but Peter Schrocksnadel, president of the Austrian Ski Federation, complained that the agreed-upon timetable kept European teams in North America too late into the season.

The Austrians got their way, and the women’s races were moved up by two weeks — two weeks in the early part of the season that mark the difference between being able to prepare a second course or not.

Find out how the Beaver Creek organizing committee will solve this dilemma in Issue 2 of the digital magazine available here.