Christof Innerhofer has returned to the location of his first World Cup victory from around a decade ago. The skier is now topping the charts in the recent training session for the opening of the tournament, preparing for a downhill race on the famous Stelvio course held this Wednesday.
Austria’s Daniel Hemetsberger clinched the second spot in the downhill training session, followed by Ryan Cochran-Siegle from the United States in third place. Despite their rankings, both Hemetsberger and Innerhofer missed gates in their runs. Innerhofer mentioned that the training session on the demanding Bormio course proved difficult due to the icy surface causing bounces for the skiers.
Innerhofer noted that despite not making it through the gates as anticipated, he sees room for improvement and plans to utilize another training session to master the track better. Innerhofer reminisced his six-time wins in the World Cup downhill on the Stelvia back in 2008 and the third place he secured in the 2010 race. The icy conditions of Stelvio seem to favor Innerhofer’s style.
On Thursday of this week, a second training session is planned ahead of the downhill race on Friday, followed by a super-G race on Saturday. Daniel Hemetsberger, the skier from Upper Austria, surprised everyone by grabbing the second spot in the initial training session on Wednesday.
