Alpine nationals: Transue wins FIS DH

Jeremy Transue hasn’t won a big downhill before, though he had come close before. He was second in a FIS race at Sugarloaf, Maine, almost exactly a month ago. Thursday, at Alyeska, he got the win in the FIS downhill that traditionally precedes the U.S. national title races.
    "I am a little surprised," said Transue. "There's a lot of good guys here."
    Transue picked a pretty good time to pop an excellent DH run.

ALYESKA RESORT, Alaska — Jeremy Transue hasn’t won a big downhill before, though he had come close before. He was second in a FIS race at Sugarloaf, Maine, almost exactly a month ago. Thursday, at Alyeska, he got the win in the FIS downhill that traditionally precedes the U.S. national title races.
    "I am a little surprised," said Transue. "There's a lot of good guys here."
    Transue picked a pretty good time to pop an excellent DH run.
    The traditional FIS race is designed to help domestic skiers get some of the benefit of lower point rankings provided by the World Cup skiers coming home. There were three skiers racing with single-digit points: Steven Nyman, Marco Sullivan and Ted Ligety. The points might have been better, too, had Bode Miller's skis arrived and his 3.43 been added to the mix.
    Nyman did his bit, throwing his skis sideways a heartbeat in front of the finish. He still placed fifth. Ligety, the second skier on course, finished ninth. Sullivan placed second, a tenth off the pace set by Transue, and Scott Macartney was third.
    The race came in with a race point total of 9.00, a nice prize for Transue, who entered the race at 28.10, and a great opportunity for many of the participants.
    The Alyeska course is not the most challenging ever, but it is a good test of racing abilities.
    "It's pretty similar to a lot of them [courses]," said Transue. "It's got technical, it's got gliding, it's got technical turns. It's a pretty good all-around course."
    Plus, without fresh snow, and with temperatures cold enough to prevent any deterioration, the course has not only been holding up well to the traffic from training runs, it's actually getting faster.
    "Oh yeah, each day it keeps getting faster and faster," said Transue, allowing that he was hopeful he could find a little more speed on the hill for the national DH championship race Thursday. There was one more major benefit of the course, according to Transue. "It has sun."
    Transue hails from Hunter, New York, and represents the Green Mountain Valley School.