Carina Evans knows how to fall, but she’s never fallen like this. He loses control of his bobsled and flies headfirst into a barrier, turns and heads down the outside wall. His body is thrown back onto the track to pinball its steep edges, and when he finally stops the crowd screams for him to move. A 100lb sled chases him with evil blades: it curls up into a ball as it passes.
“A fantastic success,” was Evans’ statement as he recovered two days later. The 46-year-old survived one of Cresta Run’s most spectacular crashes of modern times without breaking a bone. She was trying a different approach when she lost control during training for the Women’s Grand National, the first race held on St Moritz’s famous skeleton course in more than a century.
“I’ve broken the corner before, and then I got stuck and flew away,” he says. “I had excellent protection and a new helmet, which I was grateful for, but I still don’t know how I walked away.”
Dropping 154 feet and built from scratch each year, the 3-quarter-mile Cresta Run was considered too dangerous for women for more than a century. The St Moritz Luge Club’s 1929 ban on female riders was lifted only six years ago. Evans grew up on this course (his father, Digby Willoughby, managed the club for 24 years) but until 2018 he was only allowed on the lower banks and that was on the final day of the season, when the ice was slushy. slow.
Even Evans, who had waited a lifetime to compete on equal terms, had his reservations. “Looking back it seems completely ridiculous to say this, but we didn’t know if women could do it.”
It’s only been a month, and this season has already been filled with intense emotions, unprecedented drama, and a barrage of women-related firsts. In January, Barbara Hosch became the first woman to be awarded club colours, when she won the Lorna Robertson Cup; It was an achievement that was as touching as it was extraordinary: he was at his father’s funeral just 24 hours before the tournament. “I can perform better,” Hosch thinks after two weeks. “But it was pretty good considering the circumstances.”
His father, a Cresta driver and doctor, provided first aid after accidents on the track and created a composite of X-rays that the club still uses, a skeleton with a broken neck and a shattered pelvis, among other horrific injuries. To warn beginners of its dangers. Banned from joining due to club rule, Hosch quickly transformed into a bob skeleton and represented Switzerland at two World Cups. But even though he was an international athlete, he had not experienced the intensity of the Cresta Run.
“It’s like cross-country skiing and skiing. “It’s not the same sport just because you’re wearing skis,” says Hosch. “On the bow, you lie motionless the whole way; here you have to move and steer hard.” The fear factor is also higher. “I was never afraid of Bob. But I’m still having a hard time here, I’m still not comfortable, I get nervous every time I go out there. You cannot see where you are going; running draws you in and pulls you down.”
The entire course is so challenging that riders must qualify to ride it by consistently recording fast times on the lower banks and passing a “rating test” proving they can make a full stop at speed. It often takes more than one season to do this.
But even cycling from “The Crossroads,” the halfway point where newcomers start, requires nerves of titanium. This month, a group of MCC cricketers made history by becoming the first all-female team to compete in the Inter Club Challenge, an invitational event for the disabled where beginners compete against riders with years (or decades) of experience. Amanda Pearce Higgins says: “It’s very scary the first time, standing and waiting to go down, because even though you’ve been trained you still have no idea what to expect.
“This is pure terror. At the end of my first run, all I could think was, ‘What happened to me?’ “It happened.” The team were on a mission to raise money for the MCC Foundation, whose projects support girls’ cricket both in and around the United Kingdom. abroad. They also wanted to break gender barriers in sports; This made things even sweeter with Pearce Higgins finishing fifth in the individual standings in 68th.
Among those cheering on them was Carina’s 18-year-old daughter Bella Evans, who was pursuing her passion for horse riding from Top that week. She failed her first scratch test, then witnessed her mother’s dramatic accident from the control tower where she worked. Two days later, she achieved her goal: Bella and Carina were only the second mother-daughter Cresta Riders in history.
“Even the beginners are going 50 miles per hour and they’re inches from the ice,” Bella says. “From the top you’re going 70 miles per hour. I live in the countryside and rarely do this in my car. Proud Carina is delighted with the young generation fighting for dignity in Run: Her main advice to her daughter is to have fun. “And if you don’t like going fast, you won’t like the Cresta.”