As we mentioned yesterday, the Rosa Khutor alpine course for the Sochi Olympics received some changes yesterday after a major jump was triggering complaints from some of the women’s downhill competitors. That particular jump wound up being shaved down by course workers.
But one of those competitors isn’t happy about the result of those changes, and it’s none other than gold medal contender Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany.
Following today’s training session, Hoefl-Riesch, who won double gold medals in Vancouver in the slalom and combined disciplines, said that the tweaks had made the course too slow.
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“I think it’s a bit over the top to move the gate around before the jump they reduced yesterday, and add even more curves to the track, because it wasn’t fast anyway yesterday,” she said according to the Associated Press.
“The jump was not a good one, but the pace wasn’t too fast. But now they’ve reduced the pace even more, so that part is not a downhill. It’s too slow - not a downhill.”
Another potential gold winner, Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein, also expressed some dismay over the new section of the course but felt that “it will be improving every day” leading up to the downhill portion of the super combined on Monday and the women’s downhill event itself on Wednesday.