World Cup Rewind: Men find Val d'Isere tough

If nothing else, the World Cup’s at Val d’Isere pointed out in no uncertain terms that the World Championship races at the site in February will present challenging courses. Thirty-nine skiers failed to finish the combined. Thirty-six never saw the finish of the GS. The Face de Bellevarde is nasty.

When the combined from Beaver Creek got moved to Val d’Isere, France it presented a problem for organizers. Although fully prepared for the scheduled GS and slalom, and with abundant snow on the ground, the French had not gone out of their way to prepare a speed track. The answer was to switch up the combined from a downhill/slalom, to a super G/slalom. That gave a small advantage to the better slalom skiers and took the pure downhillers out of the equation.

It didn’t help any that the upper portions of the SG course were shrouded in fog during inspection.

If nothing else, the World Cup’s at Val d’Isere pointed out in no uncertain terms that the World Championship races at the site in February will present challenging courses. Thirty-nine skiers failed to finish the combined. Thirty-six never saw the finish of the GS. The Face de Bellevarde is nasty.

When the combined from Beaver Creek got moved to Val d’Isere, France it presented a problem for organizers. Although fully prepared for the scheduled GS and slalom, and with abundant snow on the ground, the French had not gone out of their way to prepare a speed track. The answer was to switch up the combined from a downhill/slalom, to a super G/slalom. That gave a small advantage to the better slalom skiers and took the pure downhillers out of the equation.

It didn’t help any that the upper portions of the SG course were shrouded in fog during inspection.

“No one really knew what to expect, essentially, we were skiing sort of blind because we couldn’t see a lot this morning during inspection because of the fog,” explained tour leader Aksel Svindal. “I was pushing hard to check my limits on this course which I did not race last season. It surely didn’t work out the way I hoped.”

Hardly. Svindal was one of 26 skiers failing to finish the tight set super G leg, making it even more apparent the slalom boys were going to get a huge opportunity to score big. But a steep course and tough conditions made hard to execute.

When Swiss upstart Carlo Janka won the SG leg, there were no less than five gate skiers within a second of his time, including Ivica Kostelic, Benjamin Raich, Markus Larsson and Ted Ligety. Top slalom-meister Jean-Philippe Grange, something of a hero in France, sat 12th, within range at 1.23 seconds back.

There were some fabulous moves from some of the slalom skiers, Grange among them. He finished second on the day just ahead of Austrian youngster 20 year old Markus Hirscher. The three-time World Junior gold medallist, started 52nd, was 21st after the super G and climbed to third on the day. It marked his third finish in the bronze medal spot in nine scored career races.

The win, though, went to the wily veteran Benjamin Raich. Fatigued by the travel from North America and struggling with difficult snow conditions from a large amount of fresh snowfall in the hours before the race, Raich found himself in perfect position to snag the win as the slalom began. “It was completely important to fight all the way,” he said.

“It’s difficult to handle because there are patches with icy snow and others when it’s soft and very aggressive. If you push too hard you go out for sure,” Raich told Rueters reporter Francois Thomazeau.

Ligety, having posted a super G result coach Sasha Rearick called “awesome,” had a good slalom leg going but ran into trouble over a roll and couldn’t regain any rhythm.

“I’m not so much disappointed as I am annoyed,” Ligety said. “It’s not so much fun when you … don’t capitalize. It wasn’t so easy because it was so tight and the snow was so inconsistent.”

The win was the second consecutive for Raich, having also won the final GS at Beaver Creek. That doubled his victory total of last season.

Janka is climbing up the World Cup start orders chunks at a time. In the Val d’Isere GS he collected his first World Cup victory and few believe it will be his last.

The Italians were in control after the first run with Manfred Moelgg and Massimiliano Blardone sandwiching Svindal in the top three spots. Janka was fourth, nearly a half second behind run leader Moelgg. Ligety, the defending GS champ nearly exited the course, made a fabulous recovery to stay in and finished in a tie for ninth. He could not move up in the second heat and finished 12th.

Janka had no such trouble, while the course also caught Moelgg, bumping him down to sixth. Blardone held on to finish second and the French got a delightful surprise from Gauthier DeTessierie posting the fastest second run time to edge Svindal for the third spot on the podium.

While course workers moved incessantly to reapply blue dye, flat light made it difficult to see and the steepness didn’t make it any easier. What it took, according to Ligety, was courage.

“At the end it was just a matter of who had the biggest balls and put it in the fall line the most. Apparantly, I didn’t have the biggest balls to do that today.”

Those would belong to Janka. “All the pieces went perfectly together,” Janka told the AP. “The course suits my style. It was just a case of going for it and showing my true potential.”

His was one of the few styles the course fit. Blardone, with 15 GS podiums to his World Cup resume’ said, “You need guts. You can’t make it down without fighting. It’s a very technically demanding course. It is so tough and so steep. It’s also very narrow.”

Things won’t get a lot easier. Next up is Alta Badia, one of the tougher GS courses on the World Cup schedule.
Svindal, with a fourth place result, remains comfortably atop the overall standings. With three of eight scheduled giant slaloms in the bag, Swiss veteran Didier Cuche holds the discipline standings lead by three points over Ligety. Janka has climbed to third with Raich fourth and Svindal fifth all within 35points.