It鈥檚 usually not until December or January and after a series of tumbles, twisted knees, torn ACLs and worse that the debate over safety in World Cup skiing becomes an annual topic.
Not this season.
this week following a crash in preseason training in Chile has resurfaced concerns over how to limit risks in the high-speed sport more than a month before the racing even starts.
The debate also comes less than five months before the .
Franzoso, who was 25, became the third rising Italian skier to die in less than a year.
, who was 19, died from her injuries after a crash last October. Then in March, Marco Degli Uomini, who was 18, died while testing the course for a regional children鈥檚 race. A month later, , who was a promising 18-year-old French skier, died in a training crash, too.
In 2017, French downhill skier , a former medalist at the world championships, died following a training crash in Canada. He was 35.
鈥淗ow many tragic losses will we have to experience before we finally open the debate on safety, especially during training?鈥 veteran French downhiller Adrien Theaux wrote on Instagram.
Added Lucrezia Lorenzi, Matilde鈥檚 older sister and a competitive skier herself: 鈥淭he time has come to stop. 鈥 You can鈥檛 go out to ski and then not return home.鈥
Lindsey Vonn was training in Chile
Franzoso crashed through two layers of safety fencing on a course at La Parva and slammed into another type of fence positioned 6 to 7 meters (yards) outside the course, the Italian Winter Sports Federation said. He was transported by helicopter to a hospital in Santiago but couldn鈥檛 survive cranial trauma and a consequent swelling of his brain. He died two days later 鈥 a day before what would have been his 26th birthday.
The La Parva course has been widely used by World Cup skiers for years. and several other national teams have been there this month.
Shaken teammate flies home
Italian veteran Christof Innerhofer had completed a run just before Franzoso鈥檚 crash and heard about the crash. Then Innerhofer saw the crash site with his own eyes when he went back up on a chairlift and looked down at his fallen teammate.
鈥淢atte, when I saw where you fell, where they were applying emergency aid, with you on the other side of the fence, I lost my mind because I feared for the severity of the situation,鈥 Innerhofer wrote on Instagram.
The 40-year-old Innerhofer was so shaken that he abandoned the training camp and flew home to Italy: 鈥淭hese are the toughest days I鈥檝e ever experienced as an athlete,” he said.
Calls for dedicated training courses
Franzoso鈥檚 death has sparked debate over whether the Switzerland-based International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) should take on a greater role in ensuring safety for preseason training courses in the southern hemisphere.
Ushuaia in Argentina and Coronet Peak in New Zealand are also popular destinations for World Cup skiers in August and September.
The Italian federation held an urgent meeting Friday and called for the FIS to establish dedicated training courses for national teams.
鈥淭he proposal could include two courses in the southern hemisphere for summer training, and a few courses in Europe and North America for fall and winter training,鈥 the Italian federation, known as FISI, said.
FISI added that the training courses should have A, B and C safety netting just like courses used for World Cup races.
鈥淚n the coming weeks, FIS will further intensify dialogue with its stakeholders, always with a single guiding principle: the wellbeing and safety of athletes must come first,鈥 the FIS said in a statement Friday.
Air bags and cut-resistant underwear
Starting this season, all World Cup skiers will be required to wear under their racing suits for downhill and super-G races; and for all events.
The air bags, which inflate briefly when activated by a sophisticated algorithm that can sense when a skier loses control, have been around as an optional safety device for years.
The cut-resistant underwear protects against laceration injuries from ultra-sharp ski edges. For example, the underwear may have helped prevent the severe cut and nerve damage to the right calf of Norwegian standout during a horrific crash in Jan. 2024. Kilde has been out ever since that fall but hopes to return this season.
鈥淢oments like this bring into sharp focus the profound risks that are an inseparable part of our sport,鈥 the FIS said. “It is not possible to eliminate the inherent dangers of alpine skiing, but 鈥 by listening, by raising awareness, and by fostering dialogue that leads to collective action 鈥 we can mitigate the risks.鈥
Mikaela Shiffrin crashed in Cortina
Franzoso was from the coastal city of Genoa but had moved to the mountains near Sestriere to pursue his skiing career. His funeral will be held Tuesday in Sestriere 鈥 where skiing was contested at the 2006 Turin Olympics.
For the Milan-Cortina Games in February, men鈥檚 skiing will be held in Bormio and women鈥檚 skiing will be held in Cortina d鈥橝mpezzo.
Both and the Olympia delle Tofane course in Cortina have been the site of numerous high-profile crashes in recent years. hit the Cortina nets at high speed in 2024 and French standout needed surgery to drain brain bleeding after he was catapulted into the air and landed hard on the Stelvio last season.
This season鈥檚 World Cup circuit opens on the Rettenbach glacier in S枚lden, Austria, at the end of October.
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