Rope upends N.Z. skier

Press, 5 August 1983, Page 32

Rope upends N.Z. skier

By

TIM DUNBAR

Simon Wi Rutene, a member of the New Zealand A ski team, was badly shaken after running at high speed into a rope on the downhill course at Mount Hutt yesterday. The Rotorua skier, aged 17, was lifted off his feet and suffered lacerations to the neck after his tangle with the rope. Wi Rutene was free skiing after a morning of giant slalom training with the rest of the national squad of the Europa F.I.S. series. He failed to see the rope in time.

Fortunately, no slalom or giant slalom races are now scheduled until at least Tuesday next week and the New Zealand men’s A coach, Russell Thomson, was hopeful of Wi Rutene recovering as long as his neck doesn’t stiffen up too much. “We build them tough,” he said. It had been planned to

start the F.I.S. series programme yesterday with giant slaloms for men and women, but a team captains’ meeting on Wednesday evening agreed that the glamour event, the downhill, should take precedence. The next two days will be spend in official training runs on the downhill course,

which has a vertical drop of 650 m, and the long-range weather forecast indicates that back-to-back downhill races should be possible on Sunday and Monday. Giant slalom races would not have been possible anyway yesterday because of the lack of time to re-set the courses. The bad weather forecast on Wednesday when the field was closed, had induced race officials to dismantle the courses. “We could have lost all the poles and flags,” said the chief of race, Mr John Morris. Mr Morris said he was “pretty happy” with the way the downhill course is shaping especially after the extra Bcm of snow which has improved the lower section. The downhill racers will have three runs down the course today, one of them timed.

He said it was important that the downhills be completed first so that the skifield company could open

up the whole mountain. The overseas teams at Mount Hutt do not seem at all perturbed about the lack of racing in the series so far and the head coach of the United States women’s team, Michel Rudigoz, said that the training had been excellent. “We’re having a super time and there has beeen a lot of support from the staff here,” he said.

Masa Otsue, the Japanese manager, is also delighted with the training. “Great, fantastic,” he grinned.

While it seemed a pity that there was no racing yesterday with such good weather and snow, the teams did about three hours valuable giant slalom training. In the afternoon most of them went free ski-ing and the women’s World Cup holder, Tamara McKinney, of the United States, was sufficiently relaxed to don stereo headphones for a excursion down the South Face.