Val Thorens Friday SX competition postponed

As much as we do enjoy some fresh powder in the mountains, Mother Nature might have somewhat overexaggerated it here in Val Thorens in the past couple of days for our ski cross racing purposes, which already challenged the organizers and the FIS race management to get a qualification in on Thursday.

However due to the continuous heavy snow fall throughout Thursday during the day, the qualifications already had been a challenge. Only the women’s quali was fully conducted, but when it was time for the men’s qualification, weather conditions got worse and a result they had to be cancelled.

The snowfall continued during Thursday night and Friday morning and despite all possible efforts and due to the weather forecast it was impossible to clear the course from all the heavy snow and be ready for the already postponed starting time at 13:30 CET.

Additionally, strong wind gusts and bad visibility could not have made for a safe race for the athletes.

Therefore, FIS and the organizing committee of Val Thorens and all stakeholders involved had to take the decision to postpone Friday’s race to the official reserve day, which is Sunday, December 12 with the starting time at 11:30 CET.

“We did everything we could, the volunteers and the organizing committee did an amazing job and gave their best to save the race, but the weather conditions simply did not allow for a safe race to be held today and the forecast for the entire day is not promising at all. I want to thank everybody, who joined forces today to try to save this race, but it is impossible with all the heavy snow fall and the challenging weather conditions,” Klaus Waldner, FIS ski cross race director commented.

Thursday’s women’s qualification will count for Sunday’s competition, therefore only the men will still need to qualify before finals.

Also, the starting times for Saturday’s race had to be pushed to allow for a qualification ahead of the race.

Qualifications are now set to start at 11:00 CET for men and at 12:05 CET for women. The new starting time for Saturday’s finals is 13:30 CET.

WHERE TO WATCH (subject to change)

Saturday, Dec 11 at 13:30 CET:

Eurosport 1 (Asia), Eurosport 2 (Europe), ORF Sport+ (Austria), V Sport+ (Finland and Norway), L’Equipe (France), Arena (Hungary), Ziggo Sport Docu (Netherlands), Polsat Sport News (Poland), JOJTV (Slovakia), TV6 (Sweden), SRF ZWEI (Switzerland)

FIS Freestyle Youtube Channel (geo restricted; check countries, where streaming is available HERE), Eurosport Player (Europe), CBC Sports Streaming (Canada), Viaplay (Denmark), skiandsnowboard.live (USA)

Sunday, Dec 12 at 11:30 CET:

TV info coming soon

QUICK LINKS: