Who to look out for at this weekend's Chamonix World Cup ski races
Will the French win gold or the Norwegians?
The Kandahar downhill first started in Les Houches back in 1928 and has become notorious for its steep, icy course and massive jumps.
The event returns to Les Houches this year for the men’s Downhill and Super-Combined events on the 19th and 20th of February with the downhill training runs taking place on the 17th and 18th.
The last downhill race held in Les Houches was won by the Canadian Jan Hudec in 2012 and a lot of new guys have arrived one the scene in the past 4 years. The strongest speed team at the beginning of this year were definitely the Norwegians. Picking up 8 gold World Cup medals and 2 silvers at the beginning of the season the legendary Aksel Lund Svindal was the clear favourite for the overall globe. However, disaster struck on the famous Hahnenkamm run in Kitzbuhel a few weeks ago, when Svindal hit the nets hard. Despite walking it off, he was swiftly airlifted to the hospital only to discover that he was out for the season with numerous knee injuries.
Despite being one man down the Norwegians are still strong with last year’s overall speed winner Kjetil Jansrud with a place on the team, and newcomer Alexsander Aadmodt Kilde (only 24 years old) and who took the win in the last World Cup Downhill in Garmisch, Germany.
Every year the guys in World Cup get younger and younger; this year the American Bryce Bennett, 24, made it from bib 57 to 6th place in the Val Gardena Downhill and then made top 10 in the Kitzbuhel Combined. The Italian Mattia Casse, 26, has had a few top 10 results too. The Slovenian Bostjan Kline (25) amazed everyone when he took the silver medal in Garmisch a few weeks ago. With a boost of confidence, he could definitely up his game again in Les Houches. These youngsters are the new generation fighting their way to the top in World Cup Downhill.
The Italians have also done well so far this year. After Peter Fill announced that this would be his last season, he started placing himself amongst the medals. Dominik Paris and Werner Heel are also previous world cup downhill medallists and could make a name for themselves on the Kandahar. The Swiss skier Feuz Beat has a second and third place from Garmisch and Kitzbuhel and will be looking for the gold this weekend.
The home favourites, the French, also have a very strong team and that’s who the crowd will be cheering for. Blaise Giezendanner who was born in Chamonix, races for the French team but is actually half Scottish. He has snuck into top 30 in Downhill this season and will be hoping to please the home crowd.
Guillermo Fayed, Johan Clarey, Adrien Theaux, Maxence Muzaton and David Poisson make up the rest of the French team. They all have years of experience and have shown that they are skiing really fast this season. My tip for the win though is Guillermo Fayed, who is from Chamonix and has hardly been outside the top 10 this season. He also came second in Val Gardena.
The weather looks like it will clear up towards the end of the week so watching the downhill should be quite good.
The piste takes up the majority of the front side of Les Houches but you can still ski over the back side and around the track. Keep in mind that the Les Houches [Bellevue] cable car may be reserved for the racers at certain times in the day. If you are on skis I recommend trying to get as close to the second jump as possible if want to see the racers flying into the abyss.
