When the 22-year-old half-time leader started the second slalom run, the person in charge didn’t want to let him drive.
“He thought the race was over,” Jean-Francois Jond from Steen Olsen’s supplier Rossignol told the Swiss newspaper Blick.
The trigger for the faux pas were two runners who were ranked 30th at the same time following the first round. As an exception, there were 31 athletes at the start. Steen Olsen was of course allowed to drive, but was eliminated following just a few goals, while Tyrolean Manuel Feller celebrated his fourth World Cup victory.
FIS race director Markus Waldner confirmed the incident. “We received a start list from Longines (note the company responsible for timekeeping) before the second round, on which there were only 30 racers on one page. Steen Olsen’s name was on a separate piece of paper. Unfortunately, the start judge only had the first page of this list in my hand.”
The person responsible will no longer be employed this season, said Waldner. “I have to be able to expect a trained starting judge to know which driver is in the lead following the first run, even without a start list.”
Steen Olsen didn’t go into detail regarding the mishap on Instagram, but said: “What a challenge to lead in the legendary Adelboden slalom! I really tried to attack in the second run, but it wasn’t my day.”
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