AGI – “I wasn’t on site, I don’t know the dynamics of Matilde’s accident (Lorenzi, ed.), but I feel like saying enough to tracks so close to each other, you risk ending up on the route as close as it is It happened to me too. There are fewer and fewer glaciers, they are shrinking, we know it but there is exasperation in training and there is overcrowding.” Thus at AGI, Kristian Ghedina, the downhill champion of the 90s and 2000s, world champion silver and bronze in 1996 and 1997 respectively, and winner of 13 World Cup races on the many routes that are designed on the slopes in training occasion.
“From what they told me, Matilde was training on the first track – says Ghedina – with the tracks being so close together you risk entering the other one and, perhaps, even colliding with another athlete. It happened to me too, in Pitztal, when at a certain point I found myself skiing between the goals that had been designed, a little simpler, for the Bulgaria team. From that moment on my teammates called me ‘Ghedinov'”.
Answering the question about the full-face helmet, the 54-year-old champion from Ampezzo, four-time winner of the Val Gardena downhill race and also triumphant on the ‘Streif’ in Kitzbuehel, replies, “it has always been said that for us skiers it limits movement and, being a appendage such as the chin rest, if you attach yourself to something it could lever itself and cause head injuries.”
Ghedina added to AGI that “a lot has been done on safety, if you take away the speed of the downhill and make it become a super giant slalom or even a giant slalom, you take away the charm of the discipline”. And he concluded: “Out of ten accidents, in Formula 1 you get hurt one-two times, in MotoGP three-four while in skiing out of ten falls, eight-nine you get hurt.”
The memory of Gernot Reinstadler
“Some witnesses told me that Matilde And cardiac massage was immediately performed becauseAnd he had lost consciousness, And was intubated and then immediately taken to hospital by helicopter. Very quick rescue, not like I witnessed in 1991 when he diedì Gernot Reinstadler in Wengen. for 600 meters, they found her still conscious but deadì the next day in hospital in Pieve di Cadore – recalls the strong skier from Ampezzo -. Now that stretch between the rocks And called ‘Canalino Adrianà. She was very proud, And she was the first teacher at the Cortina d’Ampezzo Ski School, she gave me the desire for speed, perhaps this is why risk and danger fascinated me”.
Regarding Matilde’s accident – the witnesses speak of loss of stability, splitting of the skis, violent impact of the face/head on the frozen snow, loss of the ski and going off the slope -, Ghedina explains, “I was not present and I did not see the fall but I can say that with the advent of the new high-performance material you no longer need to bend and extend, the ski does everything by itself with a minimum movement of the skier, but if you load incorrectly or do not distribute the loads correctly correct, a twist, you take a sharp edge, you spread the tips of your skis and then there is the risk of ending up with your face”. The great champion of the past, who did not like the ‘Stelvio’ track in Bormio “because it was often in the shade”, was an eyewitness to the death of Gernot Reinstadler on 17 January 1991 in Wengen.
“After my descent, I was in the arrival area waiting for a teammate with whom I would return to the hotel, I was drinking tea in front of a small screen when, at a certain point I saw the Austrian skier fall – the Ampezzo native nicknamed the ‘Jet d’Ampezzo’ reminds AGI -. When I saw the streak of blood on the snow, I entered the track: a terrible scene in front of me that I will never forget because I immediately understood that it would not be survived. At the time, our national coach Theo Nadig arrived and informed us of Reinstadler’s death and the cancellation of the race we often found difficult conditions.”
