World Cup events in Bormio show why men's downhill at 2026 Olympics will be among toughest ever

BORMIO, Italy (AP) — The weekend’s ski racing in Bormio showed precisely why the men’s downhill for the 2026 Olympics will be one of the toughest in the past 30 years.

American skier Bryce Bennett says he has “trauma” from racing down the fearsome Stelvio slope, while Italian veteran Christof Innerhofer — who has competed at four Olympics — can’t remember a tougher course.

The difficulty was highlighted by a number of crashes during the World Cup weekend and three skiers had to be airlifted to a hospital — including French standout Cyprien Sarrazin, who needed surgery to drain bleeding on the brain.

The Milan-Cortina Olympics will see the Games return to Europe after the three previous editions were held in Russia, South Korea and China. The men’s Alpine skiing events will take place in Bormio, while the women’s will be held in Cortina d’Ampezzo. The two ski areas are separated by a five-hour car ride.

“For sure will be special because the last Olympic Games was far away from here,” said the 40-year-old Innerhofer, who won silver and bronze in the downhill and combined, respectively, in Sochi in 2014.

“In the past 12 or 16 years you’ve had some really tough slope like Sochi, some easier slope like Korea, some medium slope like China. But this one will be a tough one. This will be the toughest one I think for the last 30 years.”

Unrelenting, knee-rattling, complicated by shaded sections and producing speeds touching 140 kph (87 mph), the Stelvio is a notoriously unforgiving track.

“Here it’s really the limit,” Innerhofer said. “Nobody can imagine how difficult to ski down: with the light, with the speed, with the bumps, with the jumps.”

It is one of the most physically demanding on the circuit, at almost 3,230 meters long with a 986-meter vertical drop and a maximum gradient of 63%.

“I remember growing up and like, old guys would just not come here. And now I get older and I … get it,” said the 32-year-old Bennett, who finished fourth in a downhill in 2018 in Bormio, but hasn’t finished inside the top 30 on the Stelvio since.

“It’s like I just have had such bad feelings here the last three years and I haven’t quite been able to shake it. I would call it like trauma almost a little bit. And so I’m trying to work through it. It’s like you got to take risk in the right way and be confident in the skiing and the feeling and it’s just hard to find here for me at the moment.”

The downhill is an event so speedy and dangerous to begin with that it’s the only one where athletes usually are given two opportunities to take practice runs before a race.

It was on Friday's second training run that Sarrazin had his crash, leading his teammate Nils Allègre to lambast organizers, saying “they don’t know how to prepare a course.”

He even went as far as to add “they don’t deserve to have the Olympic Games here.”

Race director Omar Galli refuted those claims and highlighted that the organizers have “significantly upgraded safety features” and will further enhance those for the Olympics.

Three-time defending overall champion Marco Odermatt was more diplomatic about the difficulties of the slope.

“The Stelvio is like a constant fight for survival,” the reigning downhill champion said. “The big problem: 80% of the course is completely icy; 20% consists of aggressive snow.

“This irregularity makes it difficult to do the right thing with the skis. Yes, it is a fight for survival from start to finish.”

The major advantage the Olympics will have over the World Cup is that the events in Bormio will take place in February and not in December.

That will help with the uniformity of the slope and, more importantly, the notoriously dark Stelvio piste will be mostly in the sun.

The last time it was raced in February was at the 2005 world championships, where the downhill finished in an American one-two after Daron Rahlves finished runner-up to Bode Miller.

“I am excited to ski this in the sun,” Bennett said. “It’s so dark. So having a little bit of light on the course, I think it will be fun to ski and I’ve heard that from former athletes, like Bode and Daron. They’re like ‘it’s easy in the sun!’ I don’t think it’s easy, but it’s easier than it is.”

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Italy's Christof Innerhofer speeds down the course during an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill race, in Bormio, Italy, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti)

Emergencies helicopter takes Switzerland's Gino Caviezel to the hospital after his fall during an alpine ski, men's World Cup Super G race, in Bormio, Italy, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)

Switzerland's Marco Odermatt is airborn during an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill training, in Bormio, Italy, Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti)

Austria's Daniel Hemetsberger speeds down the course during an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill training, in Bormio, Italy, Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti)

Switzerland's Marco Odermatt speeds down the course during an alpine ski, men's World Cup Super G race, in Bormio, Italy, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti)

Medical staff are helping France's Cyprien Sarrazin after crashing into protections net during an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill training, in Bormio, Italy, Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati)

Medical staff are carrying France's Cyprien Sarrazin after crashing into protections net during an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill training, in Bormio, Italy, Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati)

France's Cyprien Sarrazin is airborn during an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill training, in Bormio, Italy, Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti)

PHOENIX (AP) — From heartbreak and devastation to outrage, Emily Pike's tragic death is stirring heavy emotions and putting the spotlight to a crisis that has long plagued Native American communities, where a disproportionate number of people have been killed or have gone missing.

In the case of the San Carlos Apache teenager, she disappeared from her group home on the edge of a Phoenix suburb in late January.

Authorities posted her picture on social media, saying she was missing and had possibly run away. Just a couple inches shy of 5 feet tall, she was wearing a pink and gray shirt.

It was nearly a month later that sheriff's deputies in a neighboring county reported finding and identifying Pike's remains. It was more than 80 miles (129 kilometers) from where she was last seen.

Since then, news of her brutal death has reverberated through Indian Country and beyond. A crowd gathered Thursday at an intersection in Mesa, near her group home, to honor her life and to press for changes that might help curb the violence.

Dozens of people of all ages viewed the vigil's program on a large inflatable projector. Clad in red, they embraced, shielded candle flames on the windy night and held posters that read “No more stolen sisters” and “Justice for Emily Pike.”

“These tears that are shed are a part of a healing process,” said Mary Kim Titla, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Titla was wearing pink — Pike's favorite color. She said Pike had dreamed of becoming a veterinarian.

Advocates say the crisis stems from colonization and forced removal, which marginalized Indigenous people by erasing their culture and identity. Limited funding, understaffed police departments and a jurisdictional checkerboard that prevents authorities from working together have only exacerbated the issue.

Pike's case has drawn the attention of hundreds of thousands of people through social media. Some have shared photos of themselves, their mouths covered with a red handprint that has become emblematic of the movement to end the violence. Posts included the hashtags #NoMoreStolenSisters, #SayHerName and #JusticeforEmily.

In Wisconsin, organizers planned for their own candlelight vigil. Fliers in Colorado encouraged people to wear red, and Daisy Bluestar, a Southern Ute tribal member on Colorado's Missing & Murdered Indigenous Relatives Task Force, posted a video about Pike with the hashtag #ColoradoStandsWithYou.

The girl's basketball team at Miami High School in Arizona wore jerseys with “MMIW” and a red handprint on the back.

“We’re all mourning this terrible loss of a precious young girl. Emily really has become everyone’s daughter, granddaughter and niece,” Titla said.

Titla herself has three female relatives who went missing and were killed. She said the community has come together to honor Pike and to demand justice. This shared solidarity comes from a desire for healing from historical and generational trauma, she said.

“It affects so many people," Titla said, “and I think the reason is because we all know someone — it could be a relative, it could be a friend, it could be in our own tribal community.”

Pike's remains were found northeast of Globe, Arizona, the Gila County Sheriffs Office said.

Like many others, her case involves multiple agencies. Gila County is working with Mesa police, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mesa police typically don't investigate runaway reports, but the agency did list Pike as missing on its Facebook page two days after the group home reported she was gone.

Arizona's Department of Child Safety requires notification of a child's missing status to occur within a day of receiving the information. However, that requirement doesn't extend to tribal social services, according to Anika Robinson, president of the nonprofit foster care advocacy group ASA Now. Pike was in the custody of San Carlos Apache Tribe Social Services, which could not be reached for comment, at the time she went missing from the group home in Mesa.

Mesa police reported Pike as missing to the National Crime Information Center the evening of Jan. 27. Police have said it would have been up to the group home to contact her case manager who then would have contacted Pike's family or tribe.

The girl's mother, Steff Dosela, has said in interviews that she didn't hear about her daughter’s disappearance until a week later.

Robinson questioned why it took so long. “Imagine what probably had already transpired by that week,” she said.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2023 created a task force to identify policies for addressing the high rates of disappearances and killings among the Native American population. A final report is due in 2026.

Washington, New Mexico, Michigan, Wisconsin and Wyoming also have created task forces dedicated to the crisis.

President Donald Trump during his first term created the nation's first task force to begin looking at the problem, dubbing it Operation Lady Liberty. The Biden administration followed with a special unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. attorneys' offices in key areas began taking a closer look at unsolved cases, and top officials held listening sessions across the nation. Just last month, the federal government launched an initiative to help solve missing and unidentified person cases.

Tiffany Jiron, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, said more comprehensive law enforcement training that address jurisdictional challenges, increased funding for tribal programs that provide shelter, mental health resources and legal aid to impacted families and survivors and strengthened alert systems are among the policy solutions that advocates should continue to fight for to address the systemic crisis.

“As an Indigenous people, we are not invisible,” she said. “We deserve just as much attention from law enforcement. Our cases are involving real people, real families, real children.”

People attend a vigil for slain Native American teen Emily Pike in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)

A sign lies on the ground at a vigil for slain Native American teen Emily Pike in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)

People attend a vigil for slain Native American teen Emily Pike in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)

A tribute to slain Native American teen Emily Pike adorns a fence near a vigil in her honor in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)

People attend a vigil for slain Native American teen Emily Pike in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)