Are: Hank's Handicap: Slalom

If there is a sure thing in alpine ski racing this season, it is that Marlies Schild will win the World Cup slalom title.
    She has won five of the six slaloms held this season and was third in the other. But with slalom, every race is an adventure. Schild is the favored racer. She has just been too dominant all season to not bring home the bacon now. But as we have seen, the World Championships can foster some upsets and some fabulous results from unexpected sources.
    Sweden’s Therese Borssen would be a good pick. She won the only slalom Schild didn’t, and has a couple of podiums to boot. Those podiums were all in December, which doesn’t say much about momentum, but she is a home-country skier and the medal count says that is a big benefit this year.
    There are a lot of things about slalom to like, and key among those things are that training slalom doesn’t take a lot of hill, or a lot of human resources.   

IF THERE IS A SURE THING in alpine ski racing this season, it is that Marlies Schild will win the World Cup slalom title.
    She has won five of the six slaloms held this season and was third in the other. But with slalom, every race is an adventure. Schild is the favored racer. She has just been too dominant all season to not bring home the bacon now. But as we have seen, the World Championships can foster some upsets and some fabulous results from unexpected sources.
    Sweden’s Therese Borssen would be a good pick. She won the only slalom Schild didn’t, and has a couple of podiums to boot. Those podiums were all in December, which doesn’t say much about momentum, but she is a home-country skier and the medal count says that is a big benefit this year.
    There are a lot of things about slalom to like, and key among those things are that training slalom doesn’t take a lot of hill, or a lot of human resources.    
    Small teams often produce great slalom skiers, and the proof is in the start house at Are. Croatia’s Ana Jelusic, the Czech Republic’s Sarka Zahrobska, Slovak Veronika Zuzulova and Finn Tanja Poutiainen sit, in that order, at the top of the World Cup slalom standings. They are all experienced competitors who should not fluster with title-meet jitters, and they all can ski some nasty good slalom. Of them, Jelusic has been most consistent, but has been just off the podium. In slalom, where the line between fast and past is too fine to measure, consistency may not be the goal.
    Enter the Austrians, with the eye always on the prize. Nicole Hosp has been second in two slaloms this season, behind Schild by about eight-tenths both times. Hosp already has a gold and a bronze to take home from Are, but she’s got plenty of pockets left and obviously is skiing very well right now. The other Austrian is Kathrin Zettel and she can flat out scream down a slalom course. She needs a win to complete an amazing cycle, having scored placings of second, third, fourth and fifth this season. She was horribly disappointed in her GS result and she missed a medal in the 2005 slalom by a slim .17. She is not likely to be holding anything back. Nobody is — there is nothing to be gained by placing fourth.
    Another worth taking a long look at is Chiara Costazza of Italy. She has not been on a podium in this or any other season, but the closest she has come were in two of the last three slaloms and both of them were, like the title race, held under the lights.
    Resi Stiegler is the only North American woman to make the top five of a slalom this season. She can do this thing but we’d be more comfortable if she had shown a little more earlier this season.
    And then there’s Anja Paerson who snapped her own three gold-medal streak by failing to finish the GS. Slaloms can be very tough on those recovering from knee surgery, though, so she’s a far ways from a sure thing.
    No, the choice has to be Schild, and the reason has more to do with the race she didn’t win than with those she did. At Semmering she tried to back off a touch when she heard the PA announcer say she had a 1.5-second lead. She lapsed concentration, lost control of a ski and was lucky to finish at all. With tears in her eyes she told reporters, “Then I stopped taking risks and skiing so fast. I can’t believe I made such an important mistake just before the finish.”
    We don’t expect her to stop skiing fast at the World Championships.

Men’s race wide-open
    It’s not what Benjamin Raich wants to hear, but there is no race at the worlds more susceptible to a surprise winner than men’s slalom. It has been a volatile season for the slalom guys and in a race where points count for just a shade less than squat, expect everyone to be pulling out all the stops. It’s more fun to go as fast as you can anyway, though it will mean a high DNF rate.
    Swede Jens Byggmark — a definite media favorite after his youthful exuberating in press conferences — is the only man other than Raich to win two slaloms this season, and he did it back to back at Kitzbühel. He is wild to watch, but seems to have much more control than is apparent to the eye. He’s at home, so what we said of Borssen stands for him as well. In fact, the Swedes will be looking to make something of a party of the final individual race of the championships. Markus Larsson has a pair of Cup slalom podiums this season, including a win, and Andre Myhrer has a win from early in the season. They should be thinking about sweeping, which would sure add to the festivities in Are.  
    They won’t do it, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try.
    Italian Giorgio Rocca has some unfinished business with the slalom gods, having won everything there was to win last season right up to the Olympics. He has nothing better than a third this season, but he can fly when the opportunity presents itself. The Austrian squad is particularly tough in slalom, with Mario Matt boasting four slalom podiums and the amazing Mr. Raich adding three. They should be the guys to beat. Then there are the guys who have been fast but have little to show for it: Canadians Thomas Grandi and Michael Janyk; Croatian Ivica Kostelic, who has his sister’s knack for performance in big events; Daniel Albrecht, who has already staged a couple of upsets at these championships; the genetically engineered Felix Neureuther of Germany and of course American Ted Ligety, who just missed a medal in GS.
    We’re sure Byggmark will provide a good show and he certainly has the speed. Raich is the popular favorite, at least in Austria, and very cool under pressure. We like Matt and Ligety too, especially in a “take no prisoners” event.
    Much will depend on the course set. If they are allowed to rip, these four guys should rise to the top. And then there are those Canadians.