Wild scenes at Semmering: “I’ve never experienced anything like this before”

Part one of the Ski World Cup in Semmering was blown away by the wind. The women's giant slalom had to be stopped for safety reasons on Monday when Slovakian Petra Vlhova was leading at halftime due to strong gusts of wind shortly before the start of the second round ( SportNews berichtete ). The storm was so strong that even pieces of wood and iron flew through the air in the target area. The race can no longer be continued or added at Semmering. It will take place later in the season. “The wind was over 100 km/h today.” FIS race director Peter Gerdol At Semmering, the focus was now on the clean-up work in order to secure the night slalom on Tuesday. The first round begins at 15.15:100 p.m. “The wind was over XNUMX km/h strong today, but will get weaker during the night,” said FIS race director Peter Gerdol. “We will need all morning tomorrow to rebuild the finish area.” The giant slalom will be rescheduled later in the season.

The wind was raging at Semmering. © APA / EXPA/FLORIAN SCHROETTER

In the first round the wind was still limited, but before the start of the decision it took on stormy characteristics. On the slopes, the gusts not only bent the gates to the ground, they soon tore down advertising material and the finish banner in the finish area, and even iron structures fell over and were broken. Pieces of wood were torn off a neighboring house and thrown into the air. The target area had to be evacuated “Unfortunately, it was not possible to fight against a storm of this magnitude; gusts of more than 110 km/h were measured on the mountain,” said OK boss Franz Steiner. In fact, the Semmering target area was devastated by the storm in a very short time and was therefore quickly evacuated by numerous security personnel.

Former racing runner Alexandra Meissnitzer admitted: “I have never experienced anything like that.” The ORF expert had driven the route with the camera shortly before the demolition. “The slope was great. But then it dismantled the entire target area in a very short time. It would have been far too dangerous.”

In the end, it was probably really lucky that there were no spectators at the Semmering this time because of Corona. Clearing a finish area filled with 10.000 spectators would have been much more difficult and, above all, much more time-consuming.

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Wild scenes at Semmering: “I’ve never experienced anything like this before”

The women's giant slalom at Semmering had to be stopped on Monday after the first round. The reason for this was a sometimes storm-like wind, which even led to an evacuation.

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