Hinterstoder (Austria) (AFP)

Heavy snowfall in Hinterstoder (Austria) prompted organizers to upset the initial program on Friday: if Saturday's super-G is maintained, the alpine combined was postponed to Sunday and the giant slalom postponed to Monday, postponing plans by Alexis Pinturault.

The three races of the Austrian stage are essential for Alexis Pinturault, on a Hannes-Trinkl track which he particularly likes, to try to make up some of the delay on the Norwegians Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (124 points) and Henrik Kristoffersen ( 74 points) in the general classification of the World Cup.

It was to start on Friday with an alpine combined, a discipline in which he is the reigning world champion. The organizers had taken the lead in the face of somewhat optimistic weather forecasts, by reversing the order of the races: first a slalom then a super-G.

But the weather will have finally got the better of the Alpine combined.

"Due to the rain and snowfall overnight, the current weather situation and the forecast for the day, the jury with the organizing committee decided to cancel the alpine combined scheduled for today," said the International Ski Federation (FIS).

Weather conditions in the resort are expected to improve in the coming days, with sun on Saturday and rare flurries forecast Sunday and Monday.

This allowed the organizers to quickly transform the cancellation into a simple postponement. The FIS has thus modified the race program: the Alpine combined will finally be disputed on Sunday, with a new classic race order since the skiers will start with the super-G (9.45 am) and then continue with a slalom (12.45 pm).

- Kilde advantage -

By domino effect, the giant slalom initially scheduled for Sunday will finally take place on Monday, with a first round at 9:30 am and a second round at 12:30 pm. Super-G is maintained on Saturday noon (12:30 p.m.).

This postponement is good news for Pinturault, while a simple cancellation would have greatly reduced his chances of winning a first big crystal globe and strengthened Kilde's chances of succeeding the Austrian Marcel Hirscher, eight-time title holder but retired from the tracks since September 2019.

The skier from Courchevel and the Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen, specialists in technical disciplines, have already suffered from the cancellation of the slalom of Naeba (Japan) five days ago, a race which has not yet been rescheduled, in one discipline that Kilde doesn't ski.

And the calendar for a possible reprogramming is increasingly tight, since it must necessarily intervene before the week of the finals in Cortina d'Ampezzo (northern Italy) from March 17 to 22.

Without the reprogramming of the Naeba race, eleven races remain until the end of the season: an alpine combined, two descents, three super-G, three giant slaloms and two slaloms.

A program which offers the advantage on the side of Kilde: certainly it does not take the start of the slaloms, but Pinturault and Kilde do not line up in downhill.

© 2020 AFP