The Men’s FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup tour will roll in to China for the first time in its 53 year history in February, two years before the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Downhill and Super-G events will be staged on February 15-16, 2020 at China’s brand new National Alpine Skiing Centre located in Yanqing District, around 90km northwest of Beijing, which is due to be completed next month.
The downhill course’s location was initially controversial as the area gets little or no natural snowfall, and, as with the South Korean Olympic venue’s downhill course in 2018, the site was previously protected national park type land, leading to objections to the slope’s construction by environmentalists.
However extensive snowmaking is expected to ensure adequate snow cover for the course in 2020 and 2022, as temperatures are normally low enough in mid-winter snow machines to work.
The course has been designed, as most Olympic downhill courses have been for the past three decades or so, by former Swiss racer, Bernhard Russi, who says today’s racers will find the course more challenging than they might have expected.
The course is reported to have four big jumps, two very steep sections and a dramatic section at the end. Completing it is expected to take around 115 seconds. The women’s tour will race in China in 2021.
(Image top credit: Daniele Molineris / Red Bull Content Pool)
