If the FIS Alpine World Cup were a baseball player, it would be batting 0.125.
On Monday, FIS announced the cancellation of the Lech/Z眉rs World Cup parallel event scheduled for Nov. 12-13. It鈥檚 the latest casualty of the 2023 World Cup season that鈥檚 not off to a great start due to high temperatures and a lack of snow in the Alps.
Due to the fact that the cold weather during the last days were unfortunately to late and the still unfavorable forecast, Lech-Z眉rs woman鈥檚 and men鈥檚 parallel events are cancelled.
— FIS Alpine (@fisalpine)
Of eight races on the schedule to date, all but one鈥攖he men鈥檚 giant slalom in S枚lden, Austria on Oct. 23鈥攈as been canceled due to warm conditions and a lack of snow. Rain, snow, and poor visibility led to FIS , and warm temps in Europe nixed both the men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 downhills in Zermatt-Cervinia, Switzerland.
That event, held at 12,000 feet at the base of the iconic Matterhorn, was supposed to be the new flagship race of the World Cup season.
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The cancelations have left some questioning if FIS should push the start of the alpine World Cup to later in the season. After the cancelation of the Zermatt race, FIS race director Markus Waldner said the organization would discuss the future of holding World Cup events in October and November.
鈥淲e absolutely need to review the dates because we need to have more guarantee,鈥澛 Waldner said. 鈥淲e have to observe the nature. We have this climate change, we had a very extremely warm summer, extremely warm autumn, also. These are signals and we need to respect this.鈥
Indeed, record high temperatures over the summer melted glaciers across the Alps, with Switzerland losing approximately 6 percent of its total glacier volume.
The next scheduled World Cups are two women鈥檚 slalom races in Levi, Finland, a village so far north that the . The U.S. women鈥檚 team has been training in Levi for the past two weeks, and the race鈥攁t least right now鈥攊s a go.
Next on the schedule for the men is a downhill and two super-Gs in , Alberta, where it started dumping snow on Oct. 28. The Canadian resort opened Nov. 4 and already has a close-to-two-foot base near the summit. (It鈥檚 enough to make those of us in the balmy East want to jump on a plane.)
As for the , the situation looked grim in early November when temps hit record highs, and the resort announced continued operation of its bike park.
But do not underestimate the mountain. Temps dropped into the 20s on Nov. 8, and mountain ops began blasting Superstar (site of the Killington World Cup slalom and GS) with 120 snowmaking guns, spaced 18 feet apart (compared to the usual 50 feet). The team only needs about 100 hours of cold temps to adequately blanket Superstar.
FIS plans to do snow control for the on November 16.
鈥淲e are experts at dealing with what Mother Nature throws our way, and our snow making team has the full force of our arsenal aimed at Superstar,鈥 says Killington president and general manager Mike Solimano in an email. 鈥淲e are taking advantage of every bit of cold weather to cover the course with the necessary snow, and I鈥檓 confident we鈥檒l be able to hold the race as scheduled. The long-term forecast looks promising with sustained cold temperatures starting on Sunday [November 13]. We鈥檝e been in this position before, and Killington鈥檚 team always comes through.鈥