San Francisco Frontiers - Spotlight on risk management as skiers tackle notorious Kitzbuehel downhill

The 3.3km-long Streif course in the Austrian resort is widely regarded as the toughest and most demanding on the circuit.

It has also been witness to some horrific crashes, sliding bodies, flying skis and helicopter evacuations highlighting the dangers of top-level ski racing.

Defending champion Cyprien Sarrazin is one notable absentee from three days of racing, the Frenchman in rehabilitation after a harrowing crash during a training run in Italy last month.

His season was ended immediately as he underwent surgery to treat internal bleeding in his head.

Two other skiers had serious accidents on the same piste in Bormio, which will host the men's alpine events at next year's Winter Olympics.

The Streif course will feature 17 kilometres of safety netting, 180 impact protection mats and 160 air fences, with a super-G and downhill scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

"In the downhill race, it's a question of balance between respect for the course and confidence in your own abilities," says Dr Patrick Bernatzky, a sports psychologist at the University of Salzburg who since 2006 has helped the Austrian team with mental coaching.

"Every athlete has doubts. If they didn't have doubts, they wouldn't get better."

- All about survival -

Therein lies the dilemma for the rare handful of ski racers who have the physical ability, technique and downright bravado to pitch themselves down the snaking course with seemingly scant regard to their own safety.

"Risk management" comes into play: how much a racer is able to push himself, much like a Formula One driver, in the knowledge that one slight error might mean hurtling into netting.

"You choose your line and then it's all about survival," says retired Norwegian racer Aksel Lund Svindal, a three-time super-G winner in Kitzbuehel.

"Once you've made that decision, you can no longer changer your mind."

Italy's Dominik Paris, a three-time downhill winner on the Streif, added that overreaching was not on the cards.

"It's a hell of a ride... respect will keep you safe," he says in the Red Bull film based on his Kitzbuehel race in 2024 called "Metal on the Streif". "If you have fear, maybe it's time to stop."

Racers are vying for prize money of 100,000 euros ($108,000), part of a 1m-euro pot on offer for three days of racing in the upmarket Austrian resort.

It is a guaranteed thigh-trembling descent down the Hahnenkamm (rooster's comb) mountain in the beautiful Tirol valley, which made its debut in 1931.

It sees the skiers reach motorway-coasting speeds of 140km/h while negotiating sections that have an 85-percent gradient and 80-metre jumps, all the while battling crippling centrifugal forces.

The icy course, which has a stomach-churning vertiginous start that propels racers to 100km/h in five seconds, features falls, snakes and rolls through a wide variety of terrain.

- The Holy Grail -

"You can be a world champ, Olympic gold medallist, this is nice, but if you win in Kitzbuehel, you're a real champ," says Liechtenstein's one-time winner Marco Buechel.

"It's like Wimbledon for tennis, Monaco for Formula One, it's the highest peak. It's the most difficult downhill in the world. It's dangerous, icy, steep, bumpy, it's an extreme sport, the crowd goes crazy, Kitzbuehel is the Holy Grail.

"You've got to have a lot of courage."

Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the Norwegian-born racer now competing for Brazil thanks to his mother, called Kitzbuehel the "Superbowl of skiing".

There is no doubt that there is a voyeuristic, gladitorial draw for the estimated 90,000-strong crowd who flock in for the Kitzbuehel weekend, a heady mix between champagne-drinking glitterati and young locals revelling in an alcohol-fuelled rite of passage.

Man and material are tested to the max as racers fight not only creeping exhaustion but also a 3.5G centrifugal force to change direction into the final descent.

A raised pole in recognition from a felled skier untangling himself from the nets and gingerly refinding his feet is greeted by applause followed by roars for the next competitor's breath-taking descent in what becomes a slightly queasy insight into the appeal of the ultimate alpine skiing test: its inherent danger.

"It's such good energy, it's the whole package," said Pinheiro Braathen.

E.Walker--SFF