On 26th – 27th November, the Audi FIS Ski World Cup season was supposed to kick-off in the Lake Louise (Alberta, Canada). Unfortunately, warm weather and only little snowfall prevented the local organising committee from preparing the race track and forced the FIS officials to cancel the men’s races in Lake Louise.

FIS Race Director Hannes Trinkl and Men’s Chief of Race Darrel MacLachlan conducted a first snow control on Saturday 12th November. Even though the Lake Louise “Men’s Olympic Downhill” course was not “race ready” yet, the chance of hosting the races was still there thanks to a positive weather forecast. This is why the official snow control has been postponed to Wednesday 16th November.

Today, FIS officials and organising committee reviewed all the scenarios again, but had to look at the evidence: one week ahead of the first training run, the warm temperatures, the lack of snow and an unfavourable weather forecast won’t allow a qualitative preparation of the race track to meet the World Cup requirements.

“While we have good snow conditions on the upper mountain, we didn't have enough cold to get to the finish line for the men. We will continue our efforts for successful races for the ladies and look forward to the men returning next year,” said Brian Lynam, Race Chairman, Lake Louise Alpine Ski World Cup.

Information about possible replacement sites for the men's super-g and the downhill races will be communicated in due course.

FIS would like to thank the Organising committee for the tremendous efforts the course crews put into trying to make the event happen and the good collaboration. There is still a chance to stage the ladies' event scheduled on 2nd, 3rd and 4th December, so we sincerely hope that Mother Nature will cooperate from now on and reward the Lake Louise Alpine Ski World Cup crew with World Cup races.

FIS alpine news
16 November 2016 11:38