(Reuters) – Switzerland’s Beat Feuz and Italy’s Sofia Goggia won the men’s and women’s Alpine skiing World Cup downhill titles respectively on Wednesday after the final races in Lenzerheide were cancelled due to bad weather.
Organisers had already been unable to hold the required training runs on Monday and Tuesday due to heavy snow and strong winds in the Swiss resort and the schedule has no reserve days.
“According to World Cup Rules, the races will not be rescheduled. Globes will be awarded today,” the governing FIS said.
Feuz, who was 68 points clear of Austria’s Matthias Mayer, has now won the men’s downhill World Cup for four years in a row — matching the feat of compatriot Didier Cuche.
Olympic champion Goggia had been 70 points clear of Switzerland’s Corinne Suter in the women’s standings despite a knee injury that forced her to miss last month’s world championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
It was her second downhill globe after winning it in 2018. She won four downhills in a row this season before suffering the injury in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in January while skiing back to the valley after a Super-G race was postponed.
She had aimed to return in Lenzerheide to defend her advantage.
The cancellations will help men’s and women’s overall World Cup leaders Alexis Pinturault of France and Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova, whose closest rivals had hoped to catch up in the speed races.
Both overall titles are yet to be decided with three races — each win worth 100 points — remaining for men and women; giant slalom, slalom and super-G.
Vlhova is 96 points clear of Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami. Pinturault, who has not raced downhill this season, leads Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt by 31.
The World Cup finals are being held without spectators because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FIS said on Wednesday that men’s race director Emmanuel Couder had tested positive for the virus and gone into self-isolation, with all those who had contact with the Frenchman re-tested.
Austrian Hannes Trinkl, a former downhill world champion, will take over Couder’s responsibilities.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Timothy Heritage)
