Are: U.S. men not feeling or seeing in DH

ARE, Sweden — Marco Sullivan wasn’t feeling his side, which was good. Scott Macartney wasn’t feeling the snow, which was bad. And Bode Miller wasn’t seeing it when it mattered most.
ARE, Sweden — Marco Sullivan wasn’t feeling his side, which was good. Scott Macartney wasn’t feeling the snow, which was bad. And Bode Miller wasn’t seeing it when it mattered most.
    All in all, it was a tough day for the U.S. downhill team Sunday at the World Championships. Now the guys will get a break back home before returning to the World Cup circuit later this month in Germany. Everyone but Miller, of course, who will continue to chase his first gold at these worlds in the GS and slalom events.
    Miller led the U.S. men in seventh place, but he felt the way he skied was strong enough to warrant a podium spot if every other top contender had raced under the same light conditions. Miller said he couldn’t see a thing in the most technical section of the Olympia course. Miller, in fact, skied the fastest from the first timing interval to the second — where the light was good — but he fell to ninth from the second to the third and all the way to 26th from the third to the fourth.
    “It wasn’t dangerous weather, I just couldn’t ski aggressively. If I had skied 100 percent, yeah, it would have been dangerous because you can’t just be jumping on the front of a ski when you have no idea what you’re going to be hitting,” said Miller, when asked whether the race should have been delayed. “But you can’t stop the race like that, you just have to race through it. It definitely makes it tough.”
    Miller agreed that start number was crucial to success in the race. Both silver medalist Jan Hudec and bronze medalist Patrik Jaerbyn ran early when conditions were slightly better. Svindal, meanwhile, ran six spots before Miller and simply picked up speed on the lower section of the course where most racers couldn’t.
    “There are four or five guys who were really good on this course, and Aksel’s certainly one of them,” Miller said. “He showed that last year by winning [the World Cup Finals downhill] here. He’s been fast in all the training runs.”
     Miller said, given the conditions during his run, it would have been impossible to compete with and beat the world’s best Sunday because the course is too easy. It’s too hard to make up time without taking an aggressive line, he added.
    “With equal conditions [for every racer], you’d have to guess Marco Buechel, myself, Aksel, and maybe Fritz [Strobl] or [Michael] Walchhofer if they ski hard, would be the favorites,” Miller said.
    “But today you had to ski well. If Aksel had skied like s— he still would have gotten beat. You still have to get the right conditions and get lucky a little bit. Certainly without the right conditions, it made it really, really unlikely to compete with those guys.”
    Miller, in fact, beat every one of those racers he mentioned. Walchhofer struggled mightily on the bottom of the course, Strobl was never in it and Buechel DNFed.
    Miller’s teammate Macartney appeared to benefit from an early start position as the eighth racer out. Macartney also ran into flat light, but he said “super grippy” snow was a bigger factor in his slow time. His average speed was 97.71 km/h, while Svindal clocked 100.49.  
    “I just felt like I was really digging in, it was tough too ride a clean ski,” Macartney said. “I didn’t have a very good feeling and really wanted to put one in there and show what I could do. I wasn’t too happy with how the feeling was, and trying to carry momentum was difficult. Tough day.”
    After crossing the line, Macartney said he was surprised his time was so slow, and cocking his head skyward after crossing the line was his reaction.  
    “It’s the kind of course where you’ve gotta carry momentum everywhere,” he said. “If you lose little bits here and there it adds up. Nothing is super difficult on this course it’s about really executing and making no mistakes. I just had a bunch of little things that didn’t go smoothly. I knew I wasn’t carrying good speed. It sucked.”
    Sullivan, who was still combating an abdominal injury suffered last week in Are, said it didn’t outwardly affect his run, which ended in a 28th-place showing. The Californian said he simply never felt comfortable on the course, and he got tossed around considerably.   
    “It was a little tight, but on the course I wasn’t feeling it,” Sullivan said about the injury. “The adrenaline was pumping, I think I was 100 percent.”
    Sunday’s last U.S. downhiller, Steven Nyman, wasn’t feeling 100 percent. A full week of racing and training — starting with the delayed super G, continuing with the grueling super combi and capped by the downhill — had taken its toll after Nyman’s 21st-place effort.  
    “I’ve been skiing nine days in a row. That’s why my back is killing me. I’m beat. I was so tired today,” he said.
    Asked if it was tough to get back up for the downhill, which he called “his baby” earlier this week, Nyman responded wishfully.
    “I know I could have won here and do something very special here. It just didn’t happen,” he said. “I had tough luck this whole week. But I had some glimpses of greatness and I’m focusing on that. That’s what excites me, really, is knowing that I have the slalom still in me. I have the speed, I just need to eliminate the mistakes.”