Archive January 31, 2026

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of a World Cup downhill on Friday that was hazardous to her Olympic medal hopes, though judged safe by race officials and team coaches.

Safe, it was agreed, at the place and exact time that Vonn lost control when landing a jump and spun into an awkward slide into the safety nets, injuring her left knee.

“It was probably good light in the spot where she completely missed the line and did the mistake,” World Cup race director Peter Gerdol said.

Gerdol spoke after the late-afternoon meeting of race and team leaders to debrief the day and detail the next morning’s schedule.

At the meeting in Crans-Montana – starting minutes after Vonn posted on social media her Olympic downhill dream next weekend was alive – a broad agreement was that the race had been safe. Some objected to it being cancelled at all.

About 25 minutes after Vonn crashed as the No 6 starter, with the race still paused, Gerdol and the race jury called it off for safety reasons.

“I feel for those guys, they have a tough job,” United States head coach Paul Kristofic said.

By 10:50am local time on an overcast day in the Swiss Alps, the light had dimmed since the 10am start and was forecast to get worse. It did.

The race may have seemed unsafe because three of the six starters failed to finish, and even leader Jacqueline Wiles barely made a tight final turn that caused one crash.

Still, the Austria coach said his racer Nina Ortlieb’s exit as the first starter, at the same spot as Vonn, was caused by a poor racing line, not poor light.

Roland Assinger later said racing had been much safer than two weeks ago at Tarvisio, Italy, where the women went “110 kilometres an hour (70 miles per hour) through the fog where you can see nothing”.

Assinger’s view echoed the view of Vonn’s teammate, Breezy Johnson, who was caught swearing on a television hot mic while chatting with racers in the warmup area when the cancellation news came.

World champion Johnson recalled the “(expletive) rain in Tarvisio” and added: “Then they are like ‘This is too bad a visibility.’ Like, what the …” Johnson later apologised for her choice of words in a social media post.

Swiss TV commentator Patrice Morisod, who had chuckled on air hearing Johnson’s words live, later said: “If we cancel such a race then we don’t have ski sport.”

What Gerdol and Morisod agreed on was disliking the tight turns into the finish line that sent Norwegian racer Marte Monsen into the fences and almost tricked Wiles.

“It’s not downhill,” Morisod said. “For me, that’s a big mistake for the FIS.”

Gerdol told the coaches’ meeting that the course design will be reviewed before the two-week world championships Crans-Montana will stage in one year.

“In view of the championships next year, we will definitely work on this,” the race director acknowledged.

The 2027 world seems far away when the Milan Cortina Olympics open next Friday, and the marquee women’s downhill is scheduled two days later.

Vonn faces a race to be fully fit for the Olympics she targeted in her remarkable comeback as the fastest 40-something in women’s ski race history.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that United States President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Europe stirred tensions by “provoking” people during the recent protests that gripped the country.

“They equipped and brought a number of innocent people along with this movement and poured them into the streets and incited them to tear this country apart, create fights and hatred between people, and create division,” Pezeshkian said in a televised speech on Saturday, according to Iran’s official Student News Network.

“In any normal protest, they don’t pick up guns, they don’t kill military personnel, they don’t set fire to ambulances and markets, and we should sit with the protesters, listen to their words and concerns, and resolve them; we are ready to listen,” he added.

“Everyone knows that the issue was not just a social protest,” Pezeshkian said, claiming that the foreign powers “took advantage of our problems”, “provoked us” and “sought to divide our society”.

Iranian authorities acknowledge that thousands were killed during the recent protests, giving a toll of more than 3,000 deaths, but say the majority were members of the security forces or bystanders killed by “rioters”.

But rights groups warn the toll is likely far higher, with estimates in the tens of thousands.

For several weeks, Trump has been threatening to launch a military strike on Iran over its deadly protest crackdown earlier this month – protests Tehran repeatedly claimed were incited by foreign powers.

A US naval strike group has been in Middle Eastern waters since Monday, and Trump warned it was “ready, willing and able” to hit Iran “if necessary”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday the country is ready for “fair and equitable” talks with the US, adding: “Iran has no problem with negotiations, but negotiations cannot take place under the shadow of threats.

“I should also state unequivocally that Iran’s defensive and missile capabilities – and Iran’s missiles – will never be the subject of any negotiations,” Araghchi said during a news conference alongside his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan.

Separately on Friday, the US announced sanctions against Iran’s interior minister and other officials, over the incidents that took place during the protests.

Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni “oversees the murderous Law Enforcement Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran (LEF), a key entity responsible for the deaths of thousands of peaceful protesters”, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement about the measures.

Those sanctioned also included several high-ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as Iranian investor Babak Morteza Zanjani, who stands accused of having “embezzled billions in funds from the Iranian people”.

At least eight policemen have been killed by suspected separatists who launched “coordinated” attacks in multiple cities across Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, officials said.

Several police stations in the provincial capital of Quetta were targeted by alleged ethnic Baloch gunmen in an attack that began at about 3am local time (01:00 GMT) on Sunday.

Pakistan has been battling a separatist movement in Balochistan for decades, where rebels target state forces, foreign nationals and non-locals in the mineral-rich southwestern province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.

“The coordinated gun and suicide attacks are being carried out across Balochistan, mainly in Quetta, Pasni, Mastung, Nushki and Gwadar districts,” a senior security official based in Quetta told the AFP news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The attacks “failed due to poor planning and rapid collapse under effective security response,” the official added, without commenting on the death toll.

Some members of the Pakistani security forces are reported to have been abducted. Internet and train services have been suspended, while a security operation is under way.

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), the most active separatist group in the province, claimed responsibility for the attacks, AFP reported. The group claimed to target military installations and police and civil administration officials during gun attacks and suicide bombings.

The Pakistani government has not yet commented on the BLA’s claim.

Saturday’s attacks came a day after the military said it had killed 41 armed fighters in two separate operations in Balochistan, Pakistan’s poorest province, despite an abundance of untapped natural resources.

Baloch separatists have intensified attacks on Pakistanis from neighbouring provinces working in the region in recent years, as well as foreign energy firms they believe are exploiting the province’s riches.

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