South Korea will host some of the world’s top alpine skiers at a Winter Olympic test event during the long Lunar New Year weekend, officials said Wednesday.
The local organizers of the 2016 International Ski Federation Alpine Skiing World Cup, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at Jeongseon Alpine Centre in Jeongseon, Gangwon Province, will host 58 athletes and 137 officials from 16 nations.
The Jeongseon World Cup will hold the men’s downhill and Super-G races. It will be the first international competition held at the newly opened venue as part of preparations for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, also in Gangwon Province.
Jeongseon, some 210 kilometers east of Seoul, will be one of the sub-hosts of the Winter Games.
The organizers said nine of the top 10 downhill skiers this season will be in the field, led by No. 2 Peter Fill of Italy and third-ranked Adrien Theaux of France.
The downhill points leader, Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway, has been ruled out for the season after suffering a knee injury in a crash during a downhill race in Kitzbuhel, Austria, on Jan. 23.
Svindal had won four out of six downhill races before his injury, with Fill and Theaux having won one race apiece.
The Super-G competition will feature eight of the current top 10 in points standings, with No. 2 Andrew Weibrecht of the United States and No. 3 Kjetil Jansrud of Norway leading the way. Jansrud and Weibrecht won gold and silver in Super-G at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Marcel Hirscher, the overall points leader who’s sitting at No. 10 on the Super-G rankings, will also be in the field. The Austrian has one Super-G victory this season.
Svindal was also No. 1 in Super-G, thanks to three victories in four races, before he was injured last month.
According to the South Korean organizers, Austria will have the largest delegation with 32 — seven athletes and 25 officials — followed by Switzerland with 29, including six athletes. (Yonhap)
