FIS Alpine Athletes Discuss the Hahnenkamm Race in Kitzbuhel | ISOS014

[Music] some of the world's most beautiful and treacherous terrain serve as a precarious stage for the downhill where these athletes must challenge each other themselves and the mountain itself and each downhill venue on the World Cup circuit has its own unique personality but there is one race with such a storied history that evokes so much emotion it almost defies description fast exciting it's very [Music] raw scary exhilarating it's the downhill because of the reputation it definitely has a similar feel to the Super Bowl if you're going to talk about downloading of course you can't get away from kids ville the honey coming race it's it's something special it's the course is so difficult at the end when you're tired it makes it such a challenge for your head I love the feeling that I got in my stomach where it felt like you were gonna throw up all over yourself that's how I felt the kids built my first time it takes so much mental power and strength to just throw yourself down that hill the top and fight your way to the finish line and it's a traditional down hill it's whoever has the biggest balls in the most confidence that to look for speed everywhere and you know take chances and that to me is is what shows you what you're made of this course is the most daunting in the world but the Hahnenkamm is much more than just a difficult race factors other than the race loom large at kitzbühel creating a seminal experience it's not only the track that's like really challenging tough it's just the whole ambiance and a steek and everything that's evolved around the fuel did you go to kitzbühel and and you're going up for like race day for instance because it's kind of quiet the first training day right it's like kind of a ghost town in a lot of ways just another resort town second May people start pouring in a third day the third training run is like bigger than any World Cup right there's like 20,000 people around but when you go up for race day you wake up in the morning you're carrying your skis walking over to gondola and there's like drunk people like walking down the street for you you have to have the experience to know what race day is gonna feel like because everything is different that day like even even walking from our hotel to the hill if you hadn't planned on it taking in an hour then you were in trouble you'd start to get nervous before you even got to the lift getting on the lift was harder because it was more crowded getting in the hill everything was more difficult and we haven't even got close to the course yet so you go up the gondola you do your inspection you reserve this private room so you can zone out and get ready for the race then you go from this quiet peaceful room to pure chaos people everywhere snapping photos bands singing your name you know singing songs about you singing songs about your competition and then you sit there warming up and there's helicopters flying around all over the place and then the hot air balloons are there and you know you go from that to just in the start house just the full you know the shades come down yeah and you just go into this place that's the most peaceful place in the world for me growing up that's all I heard the USD annual boy is talking about his kiss bill that was a proving ground that's it turn to you and then from a rookie and a veteran on the US Ski Team only if you make it down race day in one piece to run your first time and gets P lever and to score a World Cup point there was was great but I didn't even know that I hadn't even seen my time or anything I was just fired up because I made it down I was alive [Music] [Music] you just sew out on the edge of all the different parts you are hanging it out trying to ski it perfectly knowing that that's just impossible so you try your best to correct any mistakes and be zeroed in on trying to cross that finish line at first and when you can do it and you can see that exuberant reaction when someone does do you know it's a pretty special moment if I was a downhill or I would have wanted ten down hills of kitzbühel a year just give me kitzbühel let's go out and get it on because a lot of the down hills you know you could be thirty seconds before you came to anything kids mule man you left the start gate it was happening the Chanukah is quite simply relentless with a maximum grade of 85% and a vertical drop of nearly 3,000 feet the first few meters accelerate racers to speeds more commonly reached in an automobile over the next two miles racers are subjected to the most extreme terrain on the World Cup circuit the start is the hardest thing there is I mean there's no question about that all the people up there there's camera cables you got to walk over I always had the number after climber so he was always right in front of me so there was a camera crew chasing him and knocking me all over the place stepping on my skis all this kind of stuff like do I need that when I'm trying to get ready for the for the biggest race of the season but though those are all the things that go into making this a real nerve-wracking experience and we've always referred the start house of kitzbühel as the morgue because that is the feeling the solemn looks on everyone's faces the eyes like the attitudes and you go in from the sunshine which shines on the on the part of the start there and to total darkness on the dark side in the start house and the dark side of the mountain so really you're going from like life pure life to like death doom evil you know and then you put your poles over the water the start house and you look down the course and it's just people and it's totally quiet at that point cuz you're so in the zone then you're just like this is what I live for man this yeah let's just kill this thing and you just get so fired up ten seconds before you kick out it's like the best feeling you've ever had in your life and that for me is why kitzbühel was always the best thing the start it's such a rush it's steep you have no moment to think about it what you're going to do you just got to do it you have to go with the flow it requires all elements of downhill racing like type turns long turns courage the first 30 seconds there are about as as rugged of any downhill has ever been and definitely has a certain fear element that because it's so early in the course you have to come out of the gate at a hundred percent usually I try to relax go down in my conscious kind of just cleanse my mind and then stand up and then try to sort of stimulate myself to get your activity level up pulls over the wand as the beeps signal to go push though to pushes only because there's not time for a third click down into a tuck very briefly and then out to adjust for a quick white right and then a big sweeping left into the mouse fall you had to just push your hands forward because the ground falls away from underneath you the opening sequence of this race is a ruthless test of an athlete's ability and the challenge of a mouse of all tends to leave an indelible impression the first year I ever race gets built it was just bulletproof and guys were crashing all over the place and the next guy to go down went off and hooked an edge just as he went off and started going on backwards as he went off now it's all like flying backwards me and Casey are staying at the start like dude this is the guy's helmet came off and they were like his head came off like and that we were all over here is like little bits on the radio but I guess land come down the pitch very quickly into your tuck again but then drop out because it's a compression at the bottom and you have to go through the compression and then start your turn which is instantaneous sweeping off to the left to set up for a round house set up to come into the style hang where as you come into the style hang it's a and coming in the Roundhouse right and then a very sharp diving left [Music] the exit of the styling is I think the most difficult turn in downhill racing and then on to the short cat track that takes you to the alte schnazzy but the cat track is really crucial because now you've gone through 35 seconds of really intense tough skiing and also it's quiet and you just gliding it's really easy to make a mistake if you don't keep the focus up they put that that you know wooden fencing along either side so not only do you have no gates you have no course workers no gatekeepers no nothing it's just you for 20 seconds in this fence that's going by on either side and then you come to the elta schnoz a which is a blind drop-off but as you go across the altar sizing very very rough than one of the keys is to hold your tuck all the way across through the roughness a sweeping roundhoused right-hand turn through the alarcón honk where again you have to almost stay in your tuck but you want to have a clean turn to carry as much speed into the Lark on han itself because even though you think it's relatively flat it's actually a fairly steep pitch and will carry your speed out onto the short flat before you come to the house berg jump harrisburg conte the house Berg to the Traverse to the finish to the finish is just I mean that is what makes gets built just to me to just fall down there and you have to know you come around that big left footer and you got to know where you are you can't see anything [Music] you usually can hold your tuck across the site Hill shoes and you drop into the seal hyung now they can tuck down their butt back in our area you wanted you had your hands out in front just hanging on for dear life [Music] we fly 75 meters off the last jump almost 80 meters at 85 miles an hour and then you're into the finish and it's like you know you have 50,000 people right there and I was like totally celebrating a little excess pumping I kick in my ski up his up and everybody's like damn he's he's pretty fired up for 30th place I got the 30th I think is down here and when I cross the finish line I raise my hands without knowing the time and that that means how important that raises [Music] [Music]

Channel: In Search of Speed

Views: 273,230

Rating: 4.8487396 out of 5

Keywords: Kitzbühel (City/Town/Village), Winter Sport (Media Genre), Bode Miller, Lasse Kjus, Chad Fleischer, Daron Rahlves, Todd Brooker, Franz Klammer, Ken Reid, Bernhard Russi, Downhill, United States Ski Team (Sponsored Recipient), Skiing (Sport), downhill skiing, FIS Alpine Ski World Cup (Recurring Competition), International Ski Federation (Sports Association), Alpine Skiing (Sport), Hahnenkamm, Hahnenkamm Kitzbühel (Mountain)

Id: KZg7ockrt_w

Length: 14min 0sec (840 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 22 2015