Reto Nydegger (NOR) is setting the Lake Louise SG

The first speed races of the season will take place in Lake Louise next week-end, with a men’s downhill and a super-g on the 25th and 26th November 2017.

With three official trainings, the course setters for the Lake Louise races have been appointed today, five days prior to the first official event day. On the Tour, the downhill races are always set by FIS. As usual on the men’s Tour, Hannes Trinkl, FIS race director for the speed disciplines, will be placing the downhill gates.

For the super-g on Sunday, Norway was assigned to set the course and within the federation, the speed coach Reto Nydegger has been appointed to this task. For the last six seasons, the Norwegians are claiming the super-g globe, with Aksel Lund Svindal (2012, 2013, 2014), Kjetil Jansrud (2015, 2017) and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (2016). It looks like all three athletes will be at the start in Lake Louise, even though Svindal and Kilde had some setbacks in their summer preparation – Svindal had some struggles on his come back from his meniscus surgery in January and Kilde suffered a concussion mid-October that sidelined him for six weeks.

Reto Nydegger has been setting the final super-g in Aspen last season, won by Austrian Hannes Reichelt, ahead of Dominik Paris (ITA) and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (NOR) and Gino Caviezel (SUI) tied in third place. The two other races that Nydegger set on the World Cup Tour were not topped by Norwegians neither. Thomas Fanara (FRA) won the giant slalom in St. Moritz in 2016 and Marcel Hirscher (AUT) took the Garmisch-Partenkirchen race.

There are many contenders for a win at the Lake Louise super-g, but only one will sit at the very top of the podium on Sunday afternoon, the one that mastered Reto Nydegger’s course the best.