Monday, November 23, 2009
Beaver Creek, Vail Valley, Colorado (USA)
Following the required inspection of snow conditions at Beaver Creek by FIS representatives, the men's Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup races in Beaver Creek (USA) can take place as scheduled:
Friday, 04.12.2009 Super Combined, 11:00/14:30 LOC (19:00/22:30 CET)
Saturday, 05.12.2009 Downhill, 11:00 LOC (19:00 CET)
Sunday, 06.12.2009 Giant Slalom, 09:45/12:45 LOC (17:45/20:45 CET)
Super combined is the newest of the World Cup events and combines one run of downhill and one run of slalom on the same day to showcase the skills of the all-round skier who is able to handle both the speed and technical aspects of the sport in often less than two hours between the conclusion of the downhill leg and the start of the slalom segment. The super combined was designed to be a spectator friendly competition and is a hybrid of the traditional combined event (which features one run of downhill and two runs of slalom on two separate days). In the super combined, the winner is determined by the lowest combined time for the two runs, rather than a complex mathematical formula.
In 1989, Beaver Creek hosted the World Ski Championships and when the relatively unknown German Hans-Joerg Tauscher claimed an unexpected gold medal in the downhill. Ten years later Vail/Beaver Creek hosted another edition of Worlds' when the spectacular Birds of Prey race course was recognized as one of the top five race courses in the world, designed by 1972 Olympic Downhill gold medallist Bernhard Russi of Switzerland.
Birds of Prey starts west of the top of Chair #8 and finishs at the bottom of Red Tail at the confluence of Chairs #10 and #11. The dowhill course is regarded as one of the most difficult courses in the world and features a vertical drop of 757 meters. It contains an average gradient of 27 percent, increasing to 45 percent in the middle of the course and again in the final third of the course.
For more information:
Event website at http://www.bcworldcup.com/birdsofprey/
