Young delivered again in the prologue, posting the 2nd fastest time behind Toblach winner, Pellegrino of Italy. The finals however, ended for Young in the quarters after the guide rope from an advertisment banner caught his arm, causing him to fall at the top of the first climb. 

"I felt good on the uphill." Young commented on the quarter heat. "The French guy (Renaurd Jay) left me room on the inside so I went for it - maybe he'd seen it [the rope], but I hadn't, it was white."

 

Young pulled out of the race to avoid getting in the way of the other competitors on their 2nd lap. As a result his placing dropped from 26th to 30th. However Young is now concentrating on moving on to the 2nd stage of the Tour along with fellow team members Andrew Musgrave, Callum Smith and Annika Taylor. 

 

"I was lucky the rope hit my arm first and not my neck." Said Young. "I just want the organisers to make the course safe for tomorrow."

Coach Roy Young said "I reviewed the incident with Jury and it is very clear (& agreed by the Jury) that there was a white rope (or cord) hanging from the Audi banner (I think it was actually the anchor).  The rope went diagonally across the skiers left of the course towards the fencing.  The race started in twighlight (a lot darker than it looked on tv) so no-one saw the rope.  If you stop the video just before Youngy falls you can just see it angling down over the hat badge.  His hand hit the rope when he raised them to pole; travelling at speed this spun him off to his left and into the advertising.  He got up pretty quickly but was floored again because his skis stuck in the advertising.  The head coach of Norway helped him up and checked he was ok.  Shaken he skied on but didn’t want to use his left arm, so then worried that he would be in the way of the rest of the field so he retired from the race. He was a bit shocked by the whole thing & there was a concern in the back of his mind about what would be said with him messing up the TV schedule.  None of the racers did anything wrong, Andrew was in a good position but unfortunately it turned out to be the wrong position because of how the advertising arch had been set up.”

 

Other Briton’s starting in this year’s Tour Andrew Musgrave, Callum Smith and Annika Tailor finished 45th; 98th and 70th respectively.  Andrew is hoping to battle his way through to the final of the Tour on 10th January. Callum and Annika are using the Tour to build their experience of World Cup racing before moving to target races for the season in Scandinavian Cup next week.