The Crans-Montana event was canceled after Linsey Vonn, the third of the top six skiers, fell, but the race was deemed safe.

Lindsey Vonn’s fall during a World Cup downhill race on Friday threatened her Olympic medal hopes, although race officials and team coaches deemed her safe.

The safety, everyone agreed, was at the point and the exact time Vonn lost control as she landed on a jump and spun into the safety net, injuring her left knee.

World Cup race director Peter Gerdol said: “She completely missed the finish line and made a mistake when the light was probably good.”

Gedol spoke after a late afternoon meeting of race and team leaders, reporting on the day and detailing the schedule for the following morning.

At the meeting in Crans-Montana – starting in a few minutes Vaughan posted on social media Her Olympic downhill dream comes true next weekend – the race is generally considered safe. Some people are opposed to canceling it at all.

About 25 minutes after Vaughan crashed as the sixth starter, the race was still suspended and Gedall and the race judges canceled For security reasons.

“I feel for these guys, they have a tough job,” U.S. coach Paul Kristofic said.

It’s cloudy in the Swiss Alps at 10:50 a.m. local time, the light has been getting darker since 10 a.m. and the situation is expected to get worse. Indeed.

The race did not appear to be safe as three of the six starters failed to finish and even leader Jacqueline Wiles barely made it through the final sharp turn, resulting in a crash.

Still, the Austrian coach said the exit of his fellow racer Nina Ortlieb, who was first on the grid in the same spot as Vonn, was caused by a poor line rather than poor lighting.

Roland Azinger later said it was much safer than the race in Tarvisio, Italy, two weeks earlier, when the women’s race “went through the fog at 110 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour) and couldn’t see anything.”

Azinger’s sentiments echo those of Vonn’s teammate Breezy Johnson, who was spotted cursing into a TV microphone while chatting with racers in the warm-up area when news of the cancellation broke.

World champion Johnson recalled the “(expletive) rain in Tavisio,” adding: “And then they were like, ‘Visibility is so bad.’ Like, what…” Johnson later apologized for the wording of her social media post.

Swiss TV commentator Patrice Morisod laughed after hearing Johnson’s remarks on the live broadcast, saying later: “If we cancel races like this, then we won’t have skiing anymore.”

Gedol and Morisod agreed that they didn’t like the sharp turn entering the finish line that sent Norwegian racer Marte Monsen into the fence and nearly deceived Wiles.

“It’s not downhill,” Morisod said. “To me, this is a big mistake for the FIS.”

Gedol told a coaches meeting that the course design will be reviewed ahead of the two-week world championships in Crans-Montana a year from now.

“We’re definitely going to be working on that aspect with next year’s championship in mind,” the tournament director admitted.

2027 may seem a world away when the Milan Cortina Olympics kick off next Friday, with the women’s downhill race taking place two days later.

Vonn faces a battle to fully recover to compete in the Olympics as she aims to make a remarkable comeback as the fastest over-40 person in women’s ski racing history.

She might even return on Saturday to compete in the super-G on the same mountain. “The coach just said he kept her in the lineup,” Gedol said, “because he thought it was possible. Some athletes always want to play; obviously, that’s their job.”