Skier Marcel Hirscher nearly hit by drone at World Cup

A camera-carrying drone crashed into the ground Tuesday just behind speeding Austrian skier Marcel Hirscher as he competed in a World Cup slalom event.

The news comes a day after a drone crashed and narrowly missed Austrian skier Marcel Hirscher during a competition in Italy.

Hirscher, the four-times reigning World Cup champion, said he felt that something had happened but did not know until after finishing that he had had a lucky escape. That would have been a very serious, bad injury.

He was still able to finish in second place, 1.25 seconds behind the lead skier.

Overall World Cup leader Hirscher finished in second place behind Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen and joked that he’d had an early Christmas present. “It was huge luck that Marcel was not hurt”, he added.

“This is terrible”, Hirscher said after the event. Something can go wrong, which is why some countries such as Austria and Switzerland forbid the flying of drones above people. “We agreed with (broadcasters) that drones could not fly over the racecourse but only in a corridor next to the slope, but it flew more and more into the slope”.

“He did not follow our instructions”, said Waldner.

The drone had been used to provide aerial shots of the slalom race, and was part of the host broadcast operation of Infront Sports & Media. Drone operators were supposed to keep the drones at least 50 feet away from a racer. Hirscher didn’t seem to notice and continued on but later learned that he was nearly taken out.

Prior to the event, organizers had been championing what they described as “unprecedented live TV images” from the first ever alpine skiing event to use a drone to film the race.