Austria’s Marcel Hirscher clears a gate during the first run of the men’s slalom event at the FIS Ski World Cup in Madonna di Campiglio on December 22. Hirscher. Ruling body FIS has pledged a thorough investigation into an incident with a drone which crashed right behind Hirscher during the race.
DPA/Munich
The ruling body FIS has pledged a thorough investigation into an incident with a drone which crashed right behind Austrian skier Marcel Hirscher during a slalom World Cup race.
The camera drone fell heavily onto the piste as Hirscher was skiing early in the second run of the race he finished in second place on Tuesday night.
“While FIS and its partners aim to use new technology to enhance the fan experience, an accident such as the drone crash cannot happen again,” the FIS said in a statement.
“Even if - unlike in Austria, Switzerland and other countries - drones are authorized to fly over a crowd during events in Italy, FIS and the host broadcaster will work together with all the involved parties to see what occurred during the crash and ensure that this will not happen again.”
The four-times reigning World Cup champion Hirscher said he felt that something had happened but did not know until after finishing that he had a lucky escape.
“You don’t want to imagine what could have happened. This is absolutely outrageous, something like this must simply not happen,” Hirscher said.
FIS race director Markus Waldner said after the race that “we narrowly avoided a catastrophe” and Italian organizing committee chief Lorenzo Conci said: “I am shocked that something like that has happened. We were very very lucky.” The FIS also quoted broadcast partners Infront as apologising for the incident.
“Infront apologizes to Marcel Hirscher and to FIS for the unfortunate incident with the drone. Detailed technical analyses will be conducted and more information will be given as soon as possible,” Infront said in the FIS statement. American ski star Ted Ligety was not amused and lamented a third incident within five days.
“Safety third!!!! Marcel Hirscher was SOOOO lucky this wasn’t way worse. Not acceptable!!” he said on Facebook and Twitter, with Hirscher responding “Yes Ted, it was so crazy. I am shocked.”
Ligety was referring to Monday’s parallel giant slalom in Alta Badia, a first in the World Cup which had drawn criticism from skiers; and a crash of Austrian Matthias Mayer at a downhill in Val Gardena Friday who broke two vertebrae which according to Ligety happened because Mayer was using an airbag for skiers which inflated when he lost control.
“It’s really unfortunate racers are being used as crash test dummies to experiment with an unproven airbag system. To my knowledge he was the first real race crash with the airbag which resulted in the worst back injury in more then a decade for World Cup,” Ligety said Sunday on Facebook.
“It looks to me like the airbag acted as a fulcrum for his back to break around. This needs to be investigated.”
The FIS however said the airbag has been tested thoroughly and probably prevented graver injuries.
The airbag is to make skiing safer while at the same time drone cameras and formats such as parallel races are to make the sport more spectacular and appealing.
