SKICROSS.US

Solden Crossmax

Solden 2007/2008 was the first race of this year´s skicross season, but at the same time the last race of the traditional and world reknown series with many good sponsors. The race will surely be remembered as being difficult, hard, and in some ways irregular. All the negatives were due to the weather. On the positive side the snow conditions were good, and the track was difficult. It included some big jumps and had an interesting profile. It was a wide track and took the best riders 50 seconds to complete the course. On the negative side there was low visibility, strong winds, heavy fog, and the track conditions were constantly changing. The jumps had short landings which required the racers to be very precise when landing. With all of that the riders had to fight to live during two days of racing.

A lot of racers had difficulty making it to the finish line on the first day of training, due mostly to the weather. Racers were stopping on their own due to the bad visibility, and they were being stopped by the organizers because of the numerous crashes. Unfortunatley, some of our racers were involved in these crashes.

After landing the biggest finish line jump, Honza Kopřiva´s knee gave out, and he had to be transported to the hospital for a check up. In the following heat, racer Petr Takač did not manage one of his landings, his ski cut in under himself after landing, and he also injured his knee. He was immediately taken to the hospital right after Honza, but this time by helicopter. The helicopter pilot was probably the busiest man at the resort. He, along with three snow cats, were transporting the injured skiers to the lower station of the chair lift where they received first aid. Also, Zdenek Šafář hit a hole which he didnt see causing him to lose control, so much so that he crashed. Fortunately in this case only the skis suffered. He broke his edges and after only one day of use he can as well just throw them away.

On day one, the qualification runs were held right after training. Because of the conditions, the goal wasnt necessarily to win but to simply qualify. Tomáš Kraus managed this well and qualified in 3rd, and Zdenek Šafář qualified in 9th place. Jakub Kopřiva also managed well. He qualified in 37th, and finished the day 3rd among the juniors. Čenda Hončl landed long on the same jump which proved fatal to Petr Takač, and wasnt able to stay on the track. Lucka Baierová, after consulting with her trainer and other competitors, decided it would be best not to enter the race due to safety reasons. She wasn´t alone in her decision, other male and female racers also decided not to compete in the race.

On the final day, the race start was delayed until 1300 pm after the Race officials met and decided that the event would take place.

Tomáš Kraus comfortably finished each race to qualify for the final. Unfortuanately, immediatley after the start of the final, he got his skis and poles tangled up with Enak Gavaggio, and found himself following in last place. He managed to overtake one racer, and was reeling in another, but when he attempted a pass, using an outside line, he wasnt able to manage the turn and left the track.

In Zdenek Šafář´s first heat, he didnt get very far before he had to perform some tricky maneuvers to stay in the race. He found himself in 2nd place after the start, but was soon overtaken by two other racers. Zdenek was able to repass one of the racers and was attempting a pass on the other when the racer in front of him closed down the shorter line causing Zdenek to fly off the track. During this incident, he bent his second pair of brand new race skis. That brought the total to two pairs of race skis in one event.

Jakub Kopřiva started in the fourth heat, and when the racers reached the same jump which proved fatal to Petr Takač, the 2nd place racer lost a ski and it flew in the air. The third rider managed to avoid the incident, but the 4th and 5th racers got scared of the flying ski and slowed down. Unfortunatley, this resulted in Jakub Kopřiva landing with one of his skis on the back of one of the racers in front of him. He crashed and lost his ski in the incident, but managed to put it back on and finished the heat in 5th place. However, after a few minutes at the finish line he discovered that he cut his knee during the collision, and was immediately taken to the First Aid station, which had become so well-known to the Czech racers. He was stitched up by the aid workers and walked away with three stitches. Even though he suffered an injury, this event was a good experience for him, especially since he finished third among the juniors.

All of the racers from the World Cup circut, apart from the Americans, Canadians, and Japanese, took part in the event. This shows the positive progress and development of SX, as well as the excitement from the racers for the new season.

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