BEAVER CREEK — When U.S. women’s downhill coach Stefan Abplanalp described the new course at Beaver Creek as “the Kitzbuehel of the women’s circuit,” his allusion to the legendary men’s downhill in Austria conjured images of extreme intimidation.
Kitzbuehel is the world’s scariest course. With some of the most technically demanding terrain on the men’s tour, it poses dangers that reward those willing to take the biggest risks.
So will “Raptor,” which was built for the 2015 world championships with the goal of being a worthy counterpart to the adjacent men’s “Birds of Prey” course. The men’s course, built for the 1999 world championships, has been a regular men’s World Cup stop since 1997 and is regarded as one of the best in the world.
“The Raptor, for me it’s the best women’s course we have in the tour,” Abplanalp said. “It’s also the most demanding.”
Raptor was built in part because there is limited space at the bottom of Vail Mountain, where women’s downhills were held during the 1989 and 1999 world championships. Having Raptor share a common finish area with the men’s course also saved construction costs because temporary grandstands and infrastructure are expensive to build.
But Raptor also represents a more worthy challenge for Lindsey Vonn and the women hoping to take her down in downhill and super-G this week.
“The athletes are skiing very, very well these days, and they needed some tougher terrain,” said Greg Johnson, Beaver Creek’s senior director of mountain operations. “That was a big goal when we looked at building the new course — to provide a venue that had a world championship-level challenge.”
As such, Raptor is a testament to the evolution of women’s skiing in “speed” events (downhill and super-G). When it debuted with a women’s World Cup in 2013, speeds in downhill exceeded 75 mph, and in super-G they topped 67 mph, but Raptor’s bite will come from extremely difficult high-speed turns and complicated terrain.
“The days are over when we can just point the tips (downhill) and tuck,” Abplanalp said. “In speed (events) you need to be technically clean. You need to have the technical skills, the tactical skills, and this hill will demand all of that.”
Doug Lewis, who won a bronze medal at the 1985 world championships in Bormio, Italy, said Raptor has everything a modern downhill needs.
“It has big speed,” said Lewis, a World Cup commentator for Universal Sports Network. “It has so much terrain — probably more than any other course on the women’s side. It has blind knolls, really technique-challenging turns. There’s a GS (giant slalom) turn in the middle. There is a high-speed, big G-force turn at the bottom. It has every kind of turn you could find. It has every element of a great downhill from top to bottom.”
Being a high-risk/high-reward course makes it a great fit for championships races. On the World Cup, finishing fifth or seventh earns valuable points toward season titles. At the Olympics and world championships, nothing matters but medals.
“The only way to win medals is to risk everything,” Lewis said. “To risk on an unknown course makes it even more exciting for us watching.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616, jmeyer@denverpost.com or
