Kitzbuhel DH Training and Super-G

We have a few items for you today as we get ready for the Super Bowl of skiing- Kitzbuhel!!

Kitzbuhel stories- Kitzbuhel is famous for the hill, the race course, the crowd, the fear- really everything. Everyone has a few stories or quotes from Kitzbuhel. One of my favorite descriptions of the experience came from Chris Puckett, long time USST skier, Olympian and current Director of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club. He said that coming out of the starting gate on the first pitch and shooting onto the mausefalle gave him such an adrenaline rush that one side of his face felt totally swollen until he came off the long flat over 45 seconds later. Incidentally, Chris was a skier who always rose to the occasion at the 'Buhel. Over the last two or three years of his career his best results came on this tough, gnarley, unforgiving course. Another favorite comes from the coaching side of the world. I spent the better part of five seasons coaching J4s (11-12 year-olds) at the Winter Park Comp Center with Mike Bowman, who is now the the head coach at the Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club, and with Steve Gordon, who has been coaching J4s at Winter Park since about the late 1940's. We always followed the World Cup results and we had the good fortune of being in Steamboat for a Super-G during Kitzbuhel weekend in January of 2001. ESPN was showing same day coverage of the race and we were relaxing at night after the race talking smack and immensely enjoying the footage. As if the hill isn't tough enough, the course itself seemed to be causing some trouble for the field. It was one gate in particular, a right footer coming across the sidehill right before the Zeilschuss, where a higher than average percentage of the field was skiing out, and many of them seemed to be Austrians. Every time another skier would miss the gate, Gordon popped off with a snide remark like "who set this thing?" What was he thinking? Then Daron Rahlves came down, ripped across the pitch and ended up fourth for the day. Well, later that week we learned that we actually had a connection to the coach who set the course. It was set by Norwegian Men's World Cup coach, Marius Arnesen, whose older brother Kimme was my rommate and teammate on the ski team at CU. After the WP crew yukked it up all weekend after the Super-G, I made contact with Kimme telling him that some of the Winter Park coaches had some course setting feedback for Marius. We laughed about it and even got an email back from Marius asking if we liked his course. There was another good postscript to the story as well. Right after the Super-G was over, the Austrian press cornered Marius and started firing questions at him about the set. In an amazingly cool move, Marius looked ahead and calmly informed the crowd that he would be glad to discuss the course, but that he would do so only in English (Marius is totally fluent in both German and English, but the Austrian press is much, much better in a German only conversation). What a way to defuse the crowd and end up looking OK. I'll tell you that Daron Rahlves sure didn't mind Marius's sets. Following his fourth place at Kitzbuhel, Daron aced the Super-G at the 2001 World Championship at St. Anton on a course set by- you guessed it, Marius Arnesen. From January on "I'm only taking questions in English," became a permanent part of our repartee.

Training Run 1 Results

Well it turned out that there was only one training run due to the overwhelming amount of snow received yesterday. Here were the results:

1- Strobl
2- Walchofer
3-Dalcin
4-Rahlves
6- Maier
7-Aamodt
22-Kjus
28- Miller
30-Macartney
31- Justin Johnson
40-Marco Sullivan

No surprise to see Strobl near the top- he won here in 1997 and 2000 and he skied really fast last week at Wengen. On race day, however, I have to think that Rahlves will be very tough to beat. Tommy Moe was interviewed by Ski Racing this week and I would tend to agree with him. (Speaking of Rahlves) "He's going to take the 'Buehel, the Olympic downhill, the overall downhill title, and call it a career.”

http://www.skiracing.com/news/news_display.php/3113/ALPINE

Look at it this way- Daron has won three downhills this year, all on big courses, so you have to think he is going to be bringing the heat at the biggest of them all. Allowing for the variables in skiing that can turn any race upside down, there really isn't anyone else to consider. I see the podium here being very similar to Wengen: an American and two Austrians. I think Strobl is in there and then it will be either Walchofer or Maier joining them. Other thoughts? Well, let me know.

For the others- I think Bode and Kjetil will be top six, there will be a couple of surprises and lots of fun.

Super-G

There hasn't been as much attention on the Super-G even though it takes place before the downhill. The Austrians will be tough of course. I'd like to say that Daron or Bode will be close to the top, but they have not been as strong in Super-G as they have been in GS or Downhill. I don't have a strong feeling about the finish order, so we'll have to wait and see.

http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2006/AL/0115/2006AL0115SLR0.pdf

Course Setter: John McBride, USA (where's Marius? He did already set at Beaver Creek, so he may have to wait awhile for another turn).

Start order:

2- Macartney
8- Kjus
17- Fritz Strobl
26-Raich
27-Svindal
28-Rahlves
29-Maier
30-Miller

I'll be checking Eurosport early tomorrow morning, but probably not live!. The start is 11:30 ECT, which means if you want to watch live from Colorado, you'd better be at your computer by 3:30.