Hirscher to skip Olympic team event

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea: Austria’s Marcel Hirscher said Wednesday he will skip the inaugural team event at the Pyeongchang Olympics because it clashed with his ‘professional’ preparations for the World Cup.

The team event, which is raced at world ski championships but makes its Olympic debut here, is slated for the final Saturday of the Games, February 24.The World Cup restarts with a giant slalom and slalom on March 3-4 at the Slovenian resort of Kranjska Gora.

Hirscher, the record six-time consecutive overall World Cup winner, said he would compete in the “super-G and combined, 90 percent sure, slalom and giant slalom 100 percent sure, then going back”. “It would be a big honour to start for Austria in the team event but... it is not possible to compete in this event,” Hirscher said, blaming the tight schedule.