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As a giant slalom specialist, Hans Pieren achieved two top 3 rankings in the World Cup between 1987 and 1992.
Marcel W. Perrenski reporter
The Adelbodner experience a real nightmare in the night from Monday to Tuesday. It’s the hellishly mild January temperatures that rob the crew of race director Reto Däpp and slope boss Toni Haari of their sleep. In the early hours of the morning, 14 degrees were measured on the «Chuenisbärgli». At most of the other World Cup stations, the races planned for the weekend would have been annoyed at this moment.
But Reto Däpp learned his trade from the world’s best slope groomer. We are talking about Hans Pieren, who after his racing career (two World Cup podium places) interpreted the role of World Cup race director in his home town of Adelboden for 28 years. Now the 60-year-old acts as an advisor to his successor. “If Reto Däpp needs my advice, he’s not above calling me,” says “Housi” with a wink.
The Adelbodner relied on a natural magic drug
Of course, Däpp and Pieren talked longer on the phone after this almost devastatingly warm night. After that it was clear that only Pieren’s tried and tested household remedy could save the giant and slalom on the “Chuenisbärgli”. “To keep the snowmelt within limits despite these exceptional temperatures, we sprinkled around 500 kilos of salt on the racing slope,” reveals Pieren, who recently published his biography entitled “One Will, One Way”.
The slope magician attaches great importance to the fact that “our recipe consists of pure table salt. Used in the right amount, the snow gets the desired cooling. But if you use too much salt, the snow turns into a mealy slush.” Because Pieren knows the perfect measure, he also saved Zurich snowboard hero Iouri Podladtschikov’s Olympic gold medal in 2014.
At that time, the Bernese Oberlander was staying in Sochi as the FIS race director for the technical alpine competitions. “At that time, the temperatures in Russia were about as warm as they are now in Adelboden. In the evening after the final training in the halfpipe, the freestyle managers asked me for help so that the halfpipe didn’t melt away.” Pieren kept the halfpipe alive with his traditional salt mix.
Swiss simulate the salty home game in Austria
The Swiss giant slalom cracks around superstar Marco Odermatt have been training on a particularly salty slope on the Austrian Reiteralm for the past few days. “In order to simulate the home game on the Chuenisbärgli as well as possible, our training slope was prepared with around 700 kilos of salt,” explains Riesen head coach Helmut Krug.
The native Tyrolean is convinced that the Adelbodner will present a really good slope despite the adverse conditions on Saturday. «I believe that we will experience one of the best races this season at the Chuenisbärgli. According to my information, the people from Adelboden have created a really good foundation of slopes. And if the meteorologists are not wrong, the last two nights before the giant slalom will be really clear.”
“It should be two degrees colder!”
But what is Hans Pieren’s prognosis? “I’m sure that we’ll have two good races this weekend. In order for the competitions to go down in history even with the title “very good”, it would have to be two degrees colder.”
However, according to the latest weather forecasts, the thermometer in Adelboden will not drop into the negative range until the beginning of next week.
Attention ski fans! Now quiz and type races
The 2022/2023 ski season is coming up and with it the “Blick Ski Trophy”: answer questions every day, type ski races and crown yourself as ski champion. Lots of great prizes await.
To take part in the “Blick Ski Trophy”, you have to register here.
Have fun and good luck!
The 2022/2023 ski season is coming up and with it the “Blick Ski Trophy”: answer questions every day, type ski races and crown yourself as ski champion. Lots of great prizes await.
To take part in the “Blick Ski Trophy”, you have to register here.
Have fun and good luck!