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Perilous profession Cavagnoud's death an accident waiting to happen
LONDON (Reuters) -- The death of France's top woman skier Regine Cavagnoud on Wednesday was an accident waiting to happen, putting downhill racing at the top of the list of the world's most perilous sporting professions. Not even the glamorous, high-octane world of Formula One, to which skiing's World Cup is often compared, exposes drivers to the dangers downhillers face each time they push out of the start hut. While Formula One drivers compete in space age, carbon fibre survival cells designed to withstand explosive impacts, World Cup skiers hurl themselves down ice-slathered pistes at speeds reaching 130kph protected by nothing more than a thin layer of body-clinging fabric and padding. The super-G world champion and a third-place finisher in Saturday's season-opening giant slalom, Cavagnoud became the third racer in the last decade to give her life for her sport when she slammed into a German coach during a training run on Monday, suffering severe brain damage and internal injuries. With winter having yet to hit Europe's alpine arc, the fight by skiers to find snow on which to train helped create the chaotic conditions that contributed to Cavagnoud's death. Tightly controlled While Formula One operates tightly controlled, well-orchestrated practice sessions, World Cup downhillers must compete with recreational skiers and each other for valuable patches of snow. "All we can do is ask associations to try and observe more safety in training," FIS president and Swiss IOC member Gian-Franco Kasper said. "I'm sure there will be hundreds of teams, skiers training on glaciers on the same course, there is not enough space. If there are teams together they should have a co-ordinator." "But this is not official training, really it is free skiing and we cannot control what skiers do on their own." The daredevil worlds of Formula One and World Cup skiing have tragically collided before. In 1994 Austrian Ulrike Maier died in a crash, breaking her neck within sight of the finish line in a World Cup downhill in Garmish-Partenkirch, Germany. A few months later triple Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna of Brazil was killed in a horrific crash at Imola only days after Austrian Roland Ratzenberger lost his life following a practice accident at the same race. But while Senna's death was the last tragedy to befall Formula One, skiing's World Cup has witnessed an alarming run of gruesome near fatal accidents. Abrupt end Frenchman Adrian Duvillard's career come to an abrupt end in 1997 when he lost control coming off the final jump on the famed Lauberhorn, sprawling unconscious across the finish line. In 1991, at the exact same spot, spectators had looked on in horror as promising Austrian Gernot Reinstadler caught a ski tip in the safety fencing and died of massive internal injuries. Cary Mullen never returned to form after a bone-jarring crash left the Canadian with a severe concussion, while American Picabo Street was left on the sidelines for two years after shattering femur and shredding ligaments in a downhill crash in Crans Montana, Switzerland. Last season, Alexandra Meissnitzer, was unable to defend her overall World Cup crown after a serious knee injury and this year Croat Janica Kostelic, the skier who claimed the Austrian's vacated throne, was missing from the start hut for the season opener because of injury. While Senna's death pushed safety to the forefront of Formula One racing -- witness the horrific crash involving Luciano Burti at the Belgian Grand Prix in which the Brazilian made a relatively swift recovery this year -- change has been slow to come to the World Cup. Downhills have become more serpentine in an effort to reduce speeds brought about by improved equipment, but many are run on the same courses set out decades ago. The three classics, Kitzbuehel, Garmisch and Wengen, have been granted certain safety exemptions, imposed on newer venues, to retain the events' character. In Kitzbuehel, racers traverse a cow path, while in Wengen they must find their way through a narrow train tunnel.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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