Minagawa and Schild win early-season races; Americans preparing for World Cup

Minagawa and Schild win early-season races; Americans preparing for World CupMarlies Schild of Austria won the second of a pair of Rocky Mountain Trophy Series slaloms held at Breckenridge, Colorado today, while Kentaro Minagawa of Japan won another men’s NorAm slalom (his second in two days) in Jackson, Wyoming.

“Schild was over a second ahead,” said Trevor Wagner, the head coach for the U.S. Ski Team’s technical women’s squad. “Schlep was third, and only Lindsey [Kildow] and Julia [Mancuso] were in the race from our team.” Wagner said the rest of the Americans would take a few days off to rest before the World Cup in Aspen. “It’s crazy how many races are coming up, from Lake Louise to Aspen and everything else. It’s a busy time.”

Up in Jackson, it was Kentaro Minagawa of Japan who won the second men’s NorAm slalom. Minagawa, who has scored top-10 results in World Cups, has been training with the Americans since November 13th in Snow King.

“The hill is incredibly hard,” said Greg Needell, assistant coach of the American World Cup tech team. “They were really helpful up there in Snow King all week. Pushing snow, making snow and letting us inject. They put in a lot of long hours and a lot of night hours. They really deserve credit.”

In training runs leading up to the men’s races, Bode Miller was fast, swapping wins in timed runs with Minagawa and Ted Ligety. But he crashed in the second run today, and was disqualified, although he hiked part of the course so that he could ski the rest of it for practice. The men’s speed group now travels to Lake Louise, while the tech group gets a few days off for the holiday before moving on to Colorado.