Lauberhorn Downhill and Super Combined

Lauberhorn- Provisional Results:

1- Daron Rahlves
2- Michael Walchofer
3- Fritz Strobl
4- Hermann Meier
5- Kjetil Aamodt
10-Finlay Mickel
12-Bode Miller
14- Aksel Svindal

Very impressive skiing from Rahlves today! While his training runs were solid, he was a little off his game in the downhill portion of the super combined yesterday and had not given all the indications that he would be so strong today. If you recall for his last victory in Bormio, Darren won both training runs and he really put out an expectation of victory all week. Walchofer stopped playing possum yesterday in the supercombined and lived up to pre race expectations with a second place finish, and the winner of the first training run, Fritz Strobl, was 1.06 behind Rahlves for third. The times are pretty spread out from first to fifth as two seconds separates Rahlves and Aamodt (fifth) while 11 racers are stacked into the next second (Sulzenbacher from Austria in 16th at 3.10 seconds out). Bode skied decently into 12th, tied with Kristian Ghedina at 2.41 seconds back, but I would be surprised if he wasn't a little bit disappointed. He was third and fifth in training runs, and second in yesterday's downhill run of the super combined. I haven't seen video yet, but I would guess that he had a pretty big mistake somewhere and perhaps his skis weren't quite as fast as Darren's or the Austrians. Just into the finish was Marco Sullivan, who blazed into 16th place from the 44th start position. While this would be a good finish for anyone with that high of a bib number, this probably feels like a victory for Marco. It is far and away his best result since returning from injury and it came on one of toughest courses on the World Cup. He probably made a good case for inclusion on the Olympic team and must be feeling a huge surge of confidence after that very solid run.

For Rahlves, this is his third victory of the year, and it came on a course that he likes but doesn't have the same feeling for as perhaps he does for a Beaver Creek or Kitzbuhel. He is going to be very tough to beat next week on the Streif. As much as I am enjoying his great results, I have to keep fighting off that feeling of dread knowing that it could be his last season on the circuit. Darren, don't stop now!!!

Wengen- Super combined:

Raich demonstrated more of that bullet proof consistency with a decent downhill and very strong slalom skiing yesterday to paste another 100 points on the overall World Cup board. Man, this guy is tough. The guy puts up 360 points in a week, but most of the press was focused elsewhere. He was asked this week why he doesn't garner the same attention as some other stars of the circuit. His response was really funny, but still true: "I'm not American and I didn't crash at the Nagano Olympics." It shows that while he has the appearance of the robotic, remorseless approach reminiscent of the great Marc Girardelli, Raich doesn't take himself too seriously. Miller grabbed headlines again for his straddle near the bottom of the slalom run that surely cost him the victory. It was debatable that he should have been disqualified, but not really. When I read the charge of "tips didn't cross the plane" I knew for sure there was no video feed in the world that would prove anything else. Despite the apparent failure, I think we saw a significant development in Bode's season. This was the first slalom run that had the type of speed we expect from him in the event. Even on the runs Bode has finished this year in slalom, he has not been fast (in Kranska Gora, for example, he had a huge mistake, still finished, but was over three seconds out and did not qualify for the second run). I have to believe that the lights clicked on during his run yesterday when he came through the finish with a 1.11 lead (straddle or no straddle). I would not be surprised to see him put down a top three or top six race in slalom before Torino.

Last note: I caught the OLN feed of the Adelboden GS and slalom last night on Tivo. Here's a few words to consider: steep, icy, gnarly. Anyone stepping into the starting gate, much less making it alive down the final steep is totally worthy in my book. If you want to see great skiing, watch Giorgio Rocca's second run of slalom down the last pitch. While Ligety was only .6 out at the end of the race, and put down some great turns, Rocca was in a different league.