Sölden (Austria) (AFP)
The Alpine Ski World Cup opens Saturday in Sölden (Austria) and faces the gaping void left by the retreats of stars Marcel Hirscher, Lindsey Vonn and Aksel Lund Svindal.
Fifty-one globes, including 14 overall trophies and 185 victories, are the colossal winners of three alpine stars who have retired this summer: American Lindsey Vonn (35) and Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal (36), caught up in age and injuries, but also the Austrian Marcel Hirscher, used by years of very high level at only 30 years.
Without these three headliners and in the heart of a "white" season (without Olympics or World Championships), alpine skiing must find new faces to conquer an audience with a very uneven presence throughout the year. winter (sometimes tens of thousands of spectators as in Kitzbühel in Austria but also many arrival areas almost empty).
With the absence of Queen Lindsey Vonn, skiing does not only lose a record but also its only star to go beyond the scope of his sport. Her compatriot Mikaela Shiffrin seems well suited to take the torch.
The triple champion of the big globe crushes the circuit, wins in all disciplines and seems on the way to beat all the records of alpine skiing, including the 86 World Cup victories of Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark on which Vonn broke the teeth (82 wins). At 24, Shiffrin already has 60 wins and remains on a record 2018/2019 season, with 17 successes.
Notoriety, the skier of Colorado is also committed to following the example of Vonn: ultra present on social networks, it multiplies the contracts of image, the covers of magazines, but also the emissions with, this summer, the animation of a youth program with new NBA star Zion Williamson.
"I appreciate all of this, but I get the impression that the media in general got everything they wanted from me," she says at USA Today, "I feel like people can being fed up with hearing about me, so I do not really know if there is room for + + more ".
- Suspense in men -
On the men's side, the retirement of eight-time world champion Marcel Hirscher has the virtue of reviving the suspense: the finals of Cortina d'Ampezzo (in Italy, one year before hosting the Worlds) should crown a winner unprecedented, as the only winner still active, the Swiss Carlo Janka, has no longer successful results for many years.
On the front line of Hirscher's estate are the two favorite Austrians who share his technician profile (slalom and giant) and should compete for the timbale: the Frenchman Alexis Pinturault and the Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen.
Hirscher's dolphin last winter, Pinturault (28) has regained a very high level in slalom running fewer speed events, where he remains able to score points, and confirmed his qualities in giant and combined (world champion at Are last winter).
Twice 2nd overall (2016 and 2018), 3rd in 2019, the ambitious Kristoffersen (25) sees as the Frenchman the opportunity of his life to offer himself to him. Speed specialists such as Italy's Dominik Paris and Switzerland's Beat Feuz are expected to struggle to make the final victory: the schedule favors the technicians and points usually confiscated by Hirscher in giant and slalom will not benefit them more this season.
- Global warming -
As since 2000, the season opens Saturday on the Rettenbach Glacier in Austrian Tyrol. But the choice of the date questions while the snow, even at 3,000 m altitude, is increasingly uncertain at the end of October.
In addition to the lack of stars, skiing seems to be struggling to cope with the challenge of global warming, while the controversy is increasing: environmental activists have insurgent last weekend of the opening of a track in the resort Austrian Kitzbühel, a simple white ribbon of cultivated snow spread out in the middle of an untouched slope of natural snow.
The calendar of the season continues among others to multiply back and forth between different European countries by synchronizing very little circuits men and women as is the case in Sölden from Saturday. More than ever, skiing must reinvent itself.
© 2019 AFP