Kitzbuehel preview: Great heaps of snow, points, money and hype

Kitzbuehel preview: Great heaps of snow, points, money and hype{mosimage}Teams began arriving in Kitzbuehel, Austria, on Monday for the biggest event on the World Cup ski racing calendar, the fabled Hahnenkamm races. This year’s race will be the 64th edition of the event — notorious for drawing 100,000 fans into a town with only 40,000 beds.

Last year’s winner, Daron Rahlves of Truckee, California, had a few drinks at the Londoner pub on Monday night and then took a late-night hike on the race course, known as “the Streif.” It was crystal clear evening, but by mid-morning on Tuesday the hill was blanketed by a foot of snow, and the training run was cancelled. Rahlves went free-skiing.

“Hahnenkamm” translates as “cock’s comb,” and the winners receive a tall, copper-colored trophy bearing an angular resemblance to a rooster. The mountain also honors each year’s winner by christening a gondola cabin in the athlete’s name. Technically, it’s the winners of the combined event who are entitled to the honorific “Hahnenkammrennen-seiger,” but winners of the downhill go by the title, too, and can enjoy a certain immortality for their exploits.

Last year’s win by Rahlves hit the dominant Austrians where it hurts — in a big, hometown race. It was the second time in his career Rahlves had done that; he also won the world championship super G at St. Anton, Austria, in 2001. Paraded through the town’s cobblestone streets on teammates’ shoulders, Rahlves served drinks from behind the bar at the Londoner that night.

But because he won on a truncated course (after snow and fog forced organizers to start the race at the Alte Schneise start), Rahlves has something to prove this year: He wants to race it from the top, go over the notorious Mausefall jump, and get a win without an asterisk.

“I look forward to that race every year,” said Rahlves last week in Wengen. “Even when we leave there, the next day I miss it already. … Kitzbuehel’s probably the only one that I could do week after week for a few weeks in a row. It’s so intense. It takes a lot out of you. But that’s more satisfying. A race like that just recruits everything you have.”

Kitzbuehel is especially crucial this year

The Saturday downhill race is traditionally wedged between a Friday super G and a Sunday slalom. That’s the schedule again this time, but Kitzbuehel has also adopted an orphan — a downhill cancelled and re-scheduled earlier this season because of poor weather conditions. This second downhill is scheduled for Thursday, making for a draining week for the few racers who plan to compete in all four events.

Bode Miller is one of those. Along with Norway’s Lasse Kjus and Austria’s Benjamin Raich, Miller can’t afford to miss one of the four starts because he is, like the others, caught up in the fight for the World Cup overall title. It’s been ages since that battle has been so close this far into the season, with the top four athletes within a 200 points of each other.

For those racers, Kitzbuehel is a potential windfall that could make any one of them a front-runner for the title; Saturday’s downhill and Sunday’s slalom count as an official World Cup combined, so an extra 100 points are up for grabs, points that would be added to those won in the downhill and slalom races individually. Four days in Kitzbuehel could, in theory, confer 500 points on an athlete who won all the races. Miller, who won the only other combined on the World Cup schedule this year, at Chamonix, France, jumped from 10th to fourth in the overall standings with that performance. But Kitzbuehel will be even more of a points bonanza.

Speed-event skiers come into the week well-rested, having spent an idle week in Wengen, Switzerland, watching yet another of this season’s races get cancelled (Val d’Isere and Bormio couldn’t get downhills off either — because of too little snow and too much, respectively). Last week, more than eight inches of snow fell on the classic Lauberhorn track at Wengen the day before the race, so most of the downhillers went home. The slalom skiers stuck around for a messy slalom, in which the course deteriorated fast and racer after racer crashed, a total of 20 in the first run alone.

Prize money announced

During the Tuesday night seed meeting at Kitzbuehel, race organizers announced that in addition to World Cup points, a massive prize purse is at stake.

“I would like to inform that the we have about 4 million euros to run these races,” said Michael Huber, a representative of the race committee. “Of that, the total sum of prize money will be 505,000 euros.”

An information sheet was passed out at the conclusion of the meeting, breaking down the prize purse race-by-race. The winner’s of Saturday’s downhill and Sunday’s slalom will each take home 55,000 euros (roughly $69,000 U.S.), and the winner of the combined will take home another 42,000 euros (roughly $50,000).

The New Yorker profiles Maier and Miller

Just in time for Kitzbuehel, the New Yorker magazine is going to cover ski racing. The January 26 issue contains an 8,000-word article by Burkhard Bilger called “Twin Peaks,” which compares and contrasts the technique and philosophies of two skiers at the top of their game: Austria’s Hermann Maier and his rival Bode Miller.

The story has been in the works for almost a year. The author attended the Garmisch, Germany, downhill last season, and this season’s giant slalom at Soelden, Austria. Bilger speaks fluent German, and he met with Maier and Maier’s family near Flachau, Austria, for interviews.

Recalling his conversations with Bilger, Miller says “he seemed pretty sharp.” Miller, who has been obliged to submit to increasing numbers of media commitments in recent years, was especially impressed with Bilger’s note-taking methods. “He types word-for-word what you say as you’re saying it,” says Miller. “It’s pretty impressive. He starts slowing down as you slow down. Then he hammers it.”