World Cup Rewind: Miller's win, U.S. 1-2-4 top week

Athletically for the U.S. Ski Team, it was a strong three out of four showing: a podium in the Altenmarkt-Zauchensee downhill from Julia Mancuso; Bode Miller winning a piece of history with the Lauberhorn downhill win — the miss was Miller's slalom DNF in the combi, leaving Ligety as top man in 10th; and, of course, the highlight of the week, the Mancuso-Lindsey Kildow-Resi Stiegler 1-2-4 to close out the testy Zauchensee and Wengen stops.

ATHLETICALLY FOR THE U.S. Ski Team, it was a strong three out of four showing: a podium in the Altenmarkt-Zauchensee downhill from Julia Mancuso; Bode Miller winning a piece of history with the Lauberhorn downhill win — the miss was Miller's slalom DNF in the combi, leaving Ligety as top man in 10th; and, of course, the highlight of the week, the Mancuso-Lindsey Kildow-Resi Stiegler 1-2-4 to close out the testy Zauchensee and Wengen stops
    Austrian got the win it wanted most, as speed queen Renate Goetschl earned the team’s first women's DH win of the season. As a bonus, Austria also got Marlies Schild — in races she isn't expected to win — getting a third to maintain solid control of the World Cup overall standings.  
    It was pretty good for Switzerland as well, with four podiums. Men's tour leader Aksel Lund Svindal notched a pair of eighth-place finishes that kept him ahead of any challengers.
   The most all-encompassing storyline, however, was weather. The FIS strong suit is dealing with mountain weather in winter. This isn't the first time Mother Nature has supplied challenges. Generally speaking, everyone involved knows the drill, but it gets tiresome for all involved when the drilling never stops.
    The conditions at both Wengen and Altenmarkt-Zauchensee were marginal, proved by cancellations at both stops. The conditions did impact the finish orders and provided some opportunity for hungry racers.
    The cancellations with an already crowded schedule call for imaginative rescheduling. Both Cortina and Kitzbühel already have three days of racing each, so the drilling is far from over.
    It rained steadily in Wengen, keeping everybody off the softened course. Then temperatures dipped long enough to get in one training run. It got warm again and officials canceled the super combi, which was later swapped for the slalom, figuring each course could better handle one run that two, and also figuring the slalom would be easier to make up later, because super combi needs longer courses.
    Wengen's historic downhill is interesting enough without marginal conditions. It is a classic for good reason, the 2.8-mile length alone enough for the status. Yet Bode Miller found a new way to be Bode Miller, diving across the finish line for the win.
    "I knew I was pretty much going to crash in the finish if I skied the last 'S' like I wanted to,'' Miller said. ''I was pretty prepared for it.
    ''When you ski for 2 minutes, 30 seconds before that and you don't know how far you're going to jump, well, let's say I didn't have it in my head I was going to land on my feet.''
    Others crashed in the infamous death turns, the final "S" at Wengen. How many planned it is uncertain. As implausible as Miller's finish might have been, the top-to-bottom effort had his coaches gushing.
    “Bode did a fantastic job all through the top part and then the super G turns in the middle are where he must’ve been flying. Then he skied very aggressively on the bottom, especially for the bottom of a 2:30 downhill. He just laid one down; it was fantastic,” said men's DH head coach Chris Brigham.
    "It was impressive, the way he went after it," said head coach Phil McNichol. "He held a clinic on how to ski the Lauberhorn.” For McNichol, that is definitely gushing.
    After a false start, when wind forced a postponement, Goetschl got her chance to fulfill the needs of Austria. The 31-year old veteran skied a methodically solid race for her 41st career World Cup win, her 21st in downhill. That's within striking distance of Franz Klammer's 25, though still well behind Annemarie Moser-Proell's record 36. Goetschl also is still behind Lindsey Kildow for the DH standings lead, despite Kildow crashing out.
    ''I am very disappointed," said Kildow, "as I know I could have done so well on this course. Of course, I am glad to be OK after the crash, but this cost me a whole lot of points.''
    Coming in second was Swiss Dominique Gisin, the lone skier to have finished the wind-canceled race, which she felt was an advantage. Mancuso, now third in the DH standings, got third in the race as well, her third straight DH podium.
    If the racing suffered from the weather in these events, the men's combined hemorrhaged.
    FIS official Mike Kertesz said he received complaints after the race. ‘'The ones who didn't win complained,'' Kertesz told The Associated Press. ''Like any race where the conditions were difficult, they blamed the conditions. We did our best to make a professional race with what we had. Some racers are going to be happy, others aren't.''
    "I don't like to see a race like this because it wasn't about the fastest guy, but about starting positions and happenstance. The conditions were horrific.'' McNichol said, adding," This race sucked."
    ''It wasn't a very correct race,'' said Peter Fill, who had to ski the slalom from the 30th position. "It was impossible to win when you started 30 in the slalom.''
    Mario Matt, who was maneuvered into the first start for the slalom leg, won, and the Swiss took advantage as well, with Marc Berthod and Silvan Zurbriggen on the podium, Berthod now leading the combined standings.
    And, that crazy good, never been bettered, 1-2-4 showing by the U.S. women in a SG-SL combined. Just for perspective: There has now been 1-2 World Cup finishes by U.S. women's racers nine times. Lindsey Kildow has been involved in three of them, and that has never been done before. Tamara McKinney, Barbara Cochran and Mancuso have been involved in two of these double-ups, putting Mancuso in pretty good company.
    By any standards it was good. So good that coach Patrick Riml was having a hard time even getting a grasp on it. "If you asked me at breakfast if we could go 1-2-4, I would have said that's wishful thinking; in the last combined, Julia and Lindsey were sick. We know our girls can be in there if they're skiing well, but this is crazy … just so great because we all know this is within their skill."
    The U.S. Ski Team — men and women — has posted more wins to this point of the season (nine) than the benchmark '82 team had secured by the end of January. Keep paying attention fans. This is getting good.