European Report: Miller ready for crunch time; Spain's Rienda wants a win

European Report: Miller ready for crunch time; Spain’s Rienda wants a win{mosimage}Bode Miller and the rest of the men’s field return to action Saturday after a weekend off for giant slalom and slalom races in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.

The technical events should help boost Miller and Austrian Benjamin Raich in the fight for the overall standings. Miller is in third, one point behind Raich, who trails teammate Hermann Maier by 69 points.

Writing in his diary in The Denver Post, Miller said the “race for the overall title is getting pretty tight. It’s going to come down to who executes. There’s enough racing left that no one is a standout favorite. I am the only one who races all four events, so I have an advantage there.”

Miller wrote that Maier could have a slight edge because the Austrian is capable of dominating the speed events and still has the ability to come around in the giant slalom. Miller said he’s “been happy with the motor home I’m living in” and is looking forward to the World Cup Finals in Sestriere, Italy, next month.

“Physically, I feel good. There’s a certain amount of fatigue that goes with being this late in the season, but I feel a lot better than I have in the past, and I usually feel good this time of the season,” he said. “I’ve been skiing well, I’m ready to win races and I’m having fun.”

>> Spain’s Rienda wants a win

María José Rienda has been inching closer to that elusive World Cup victory all season long. Following her second place behind Anja Paerson in last weekend’s giant slalom at Are, Sweden, Rienda says she wants to take that final step higher on the podium.

“I am happy with the result and to be second in the World Cup (giant slalom) standings, something I want to maintain at Sestriere, where I go for everything,” she told the Spanish wire service EFE.

“I’ve been skiing better than ever and the next step is to win a race and it would be great if I could do it there,” Rienda said.

>> Schild hopes to race in Finland

Austrian gate specialist Marlies Schild will likely race in both slaloms this weekend in Levi just three weeks after knee surgery.

The 22-year-old scored four slalom podiums but injured her knee in training before technical events in Region Arber, Germany, earlier this month. Doctors repaired ligament damage in her left knee, the sixth knee operation of her career.

“The recovery has gone better than we hoped and I am anxious to ski in Finland to get back to as strong as possible for Sestriere,” Schild told radion ORF. “I skied on it last weekend and it feels good. It’s looking good to race in Finland, but we will do some more testing this week before making the final decision. It feels strong and I don’t have fear to injure it again.”

>> New probe into Kaprun incident

Austrian prosecutors have launched a probe into the manufacturer of a heater which a judge said sparked a ski train blaze that killed 155 tourists in November 2000, a state prosecution spokesman told Reuters on Monday.

Last week, an Austrian court cleared 16 resort workers, safety inspectors, train operators and their suppliers of negligence charges in Austria’s deadliest peacetime disaster.

Only 12 people survived the accident at the ski resort of Kaprun when fire raced through a funicular train, bringing its two crowded carriages to a halt in a tunnel. The 155 dead included German, Japanese and U.S. tourists as well as Austrians.

Judge Manfred Seiss said in his judgment a manufacturing fault in a heater made it catch fire, sparking the deadly blaze. But no employees of Fakir, the German company that made the heater, were charged in that case.

Salzburg state prosecution spokesman Thomas Wegleiter said the train’s operator, Gletscherbahnen AG, requested the investigation before the verdict was given. “Gletscherbahnen AG reported Fakir in January for alleged faults in the heater,” Wegleiter said.

The operator accused Fakir of negligently causing the blaze and of presenting false evidence to the court during the trial, he added. Fakir was not immediately available for comment.

“Only now that the preliminary Kaprun trial has ended can the prosecutor take charge of the case,” Wegleiter said.

If the probe found enough evidence to back the claims, the prosecutor would bring a criminal case against Fakir employees, he said.

But Wegleiter said it was likely they could only be tried on a charge of presenting false evidence because too much time would have passed for the negligence charge to be brought.

This case would be handled by a different prosecutor than the first criminal case, Wegleiter added.