Sölden: Svindal overtakes Ligety for GS triumph

Defending World Cup overall champ Aksel Lund Svindal sizzled with the fastest second-run time Sunday in the Sölden giant slalom, vaulting from sixth after the first run to win the season opener. American Ted Ligety, fastest in the opening run, was the last racer down but could not hold his lead on the Rettenbach Glacier, slipping to second.
    Kalle Palander of Finland rounded out the podium, with Austria’s Benni Raich in fourth and American Bode Miller, in his first race independent of the U.S. Ski Team, charging to fifth.
    “I skied well but Aksel beat me more than I beat myself,” Ligety said.

SÖLDEN, Austria — The big Norwegian proved big at World Cup Finals in March, and Sunday, Aksel Lund Svindal proved that it will take a big effort to unseat him as the best male ski racer on the planet.
    The defending World Cup overall champ, Svindal sizzled with the fastest second-run time Sunday in the Sölden giant slalom, vaulting from sixth after the first run to win the season opener. American Ted Ligety, fastest in the opening run, was the last racer down but could not hold his lead on the Rettenbach Glacier, slipping to second.
    “I skied well but Aksel beat me more than I beat myself,” Ligety said.
    Kalle Palander of Finland rounded out the podium, with Austria’s Benni Raich in fourth and American Bode Miller, in his first race independent of the U.S. Ski Team, charging to fifth.
    “Coming over the roll [on the second run] I made a big mistake and almost went down,” Ligety said. “After that I was struggling, but Aksel made one heck of a run.”
    Svindal finished with a two-run time of 2 minutes, 17.87 seconds, with Ligety .32 back and Palander .39 back. “I knew that it was going to be tough,” Ligety said of fending off the Norwegian. “Still, it’s a pretty good start. I’m expecting to have a good season. I had good summer training and I’m going to try to keep things going the same as they are today and try to be consistent all year.”
    Veteran U.S. racers Erik Schlopy and Dane Spencer, both returning from injury, were outside the top-30 cut for the second run. Jake Zamansky, Tim Jitloff and Jimmy Cochran also failed to break into the top 30 from late starting numbers.
    Miller struggled in his first run as an independent racer, finishing 1.93 seconds behind Ligety in 17th. Hermann Maier, who joined Miller on Head skis during the offseason, also missed the mojo, finishing 2.01 off the pace.
    Contending with nerve problems in his back and shoulders, Miller looked very wild in the first run. But Karl Freshner, former Swiss, Austrian and Slovenian coach, observed of Miller, “I have been watching him training. If he gets down twice, no one will touch him.”
    Miller did get down twice, and his second run was a dandy, second-fastest behind Svindal. Miller seized the lead of the race for a long time, until Palander knocked him off the hot seat.
    Miller got a helpful break in the clouds at the top of the course for his second run, but he got late and took two turns wide just after the breakover. His light was not so good at the bottom of the course. Most racers, in fact, dealt with very flat light, and there were light snow flurries for the second run.
    “He ripped it,” Ligety said of Miller’s second run. “It was great to watch.”
    “I was struggling to get a feel for the snow first run. We warmed up on completely different snow,” Miller said. “I’m pretty satisfied with my race today. Second run I was able to recover from my mistake. There were two sections I was particularly happy with, where I felt I had good rhythm.”
    When Svindal took control of the race, it was Ligety’s turn. In the first run, Ligety started second on a new course with good light. After just five racers, the course seemed to get much rougher and broken clouds came over the glacier.
    “I was really clean up there and you had to be,” Ligety said of his first run. “It is pretty easy to get chucked around [on the steeps]. I was a bit choppy on the bottom, which I need to do better next run. … It is always good to be in the lead.”
    He started the second run with a 1.17 advantage on Svindal, but when Ligety rushed past the interval timer, that margin was down to .36, and it was clear he couldn’t hold the advantage.
    “I worked harder this summer than ever before. I spent more time on skis and more time in the gym than I ever did,” Svindal said. “I pushed all that work into one race situation. This has given a massive confidence boost at the start of the season.”
    U.S. men’s coach Greg Needell said Ligety “got behind coming over the big break midway through the course and he started to lose some time there, and once you lose time on that section, you can’t make it up. Palander did the same thing.”
    Still, Ligety made it 2-for-2 for American podiums on the Rettenbach Glacier, following Julia Mancuso’s second-place result Saturday.
    “For me, watching Julia yesterday was inspirational, especially coming from as far back as she did,” Ligety said. He also said he was inspired by Spencer’s return to racing 20 months after his devastating 2006 NorAm crash.
    Ligety, 23, now has nine World Cup GS top-10 finishes and three podiums — a third at Beaver Creek last December to go along with a victory at Yongpyong in March 2006. He was fourth in GS at the 2007 World Championships, then won the GS national title at Alyeska, Alaska, in April.
    It was the first time Ligety had ever led after the opening leg of a World Cup race, meaning it was also the first time he kicked out last from the ski hut on the final run.
    “To be the last guy in the start hut in the second run was new to me and I had to control my nerves,” Ligety said. “Now I know what it’s like. I’ll take more risk next time.”
    Saturday, the World Cup alpine season kicked off with a thrilling women’s GS. Italy’s Denise Karbon was a surprise winner, with Mancuso vaulting from 12th to second to nab a podium. The announced crowd Sunday was 16,000, besting the 11,000 from Saturday.
    The World Cup tour — snow conditions permitting — next heads to Levi, Finland, for slalom races Nov. 10-11 before shifting to North America, with Lake Louise, Panorama, Beaver Creek and Aspen on the slate.

— Gary Black Jr. contributed to this report

---

Sölden World Cup men's giant slalom

Rank	Bib	FIS Code	Name	Year	Nation	Run 1	Run 2	Total Time	FIS Points
1	4	421328	SVINDAL Aksel Lund	1982	NOR	1:08.89	1:08.98	2:17.87	0.00
2	2	534562	LIGETY Ted	1984	USA	1:07.72	1:10.47	2:18.19	2.04
3	1	180251	PALANDER Kalle	1977	FIN	1:07.92	1:10.34	2:18.26	2.49
4	3	50625	RAICH Benjamin	1978	AUT	1:08.30	1:10.23	2:18.53	4.21
5	11	532431	MILLER Bode	1977	USA	1:09.65	1:09.28	2:18.93	6.77
6	10	292491	MOELGG Manfred	1982	ITA	1:09.20	1:09.83	2:19.03	7.40
7	24	191750	FANARA Thomas	1981	FRA	1:09.45	1:09.67	2:19.12	7.98
8	7	510030	CUCHE Didier	1974	SUI	1:09.21	1:09.97	2:19.18	8.36
9	14	292250	SCHIEPPATI Alberto	1981	ITA	1:09.24	1:10.23	2:19.47	10.21
10	37	50743	LANZINGER Matthias	1980	AUT	1:09.84	1:09.68	2:19.52	10.53
11	20	51005	SCHEIBER Mario	1983	AUT	1:09.45	1:10.25	2:19.70	11.68
11	17	510997	BERTHOD Marc	1983	SUI	1:09.50	1:10.20	2:19.70	& nbsp;11.68
13	22	292455	FILL Peter	1982	ITA	1:10.31	1:09.45	2:19.76	12.06
14	6	102814	BOURQUE Francois	1984	CAN	1:09.04	1:10.73	2:19.77	12.13
15	8	292120	SIMONCELLI Davide	1979	ITA	1:10.34	1:09.52	2:19.86	12.70
16	25	50547	SCHOENFELDER Rainer	1977	AUT	1:09.47	1:10.48	2:19.95	13.28
17	21	50707	MATT Mario	1979	AUT	1:09.96	1:10.07	2:20.03	13.79
18	15	510727	DEFAGO Didier	1977	SUI	1:09.39	1:10.67	2:20.06	13.98
19	18	50451	GRUBER Christoph	1976	AUT	1:10.38	1:09.71	2:20.09	14.17
20	31	501101	BYGGMARK Jens	1985	SWE	1:10.42	1:09.74	2:20.16	14.62
20	16	50423	MAIER Hermann	1972	AUT	1:09.73	1:10.43	2:20.16	14.62
22	9	510993	ALBRECHT Daniel	1983	SUI	1:08.74	1:11.50	2:20.24	15.13
23	13	190677	CHENAL Joel	1973	FRA	1:09.39	1:11.17	2:20.56	17.17
24	63	500656	LARSSON Markus	1979	SWE	1:10.53	1:10.06	2:20.59	17.36
25	26	50600	GOERGL Stephan	1978	AUT	1:09.76	1:10.85	2:20.61	17.49
26	38	180534	SANDELL Marcus	1987	FIN	1:10.44	1:10.33	2:20.77	18.51

Did not start 1st run:
VAJDIC Bernard (SLO), ROBERTO Alessandro (ITA)

Did not finish 1st run:
DIXON Robbie (CAN), BARRETT Scott (CAN), BANK Ondrej (CZE), MERMILLOD BLONDIN Thomas (FRA), RAINER Niklas (SWE), RIEDER Arnold (ITA), BUECHEL Marco (LIE)

Did not finish 2nd run:
ROY Jean-Philippe (CAN), GORZA Ales (SLO), KUCERA John (CAN), BLARDONE Massimiliano (ITA)

Did not qualify 1st run:
RUMIANCEV Vitalij (LTU), BABUSIAK Jaroslav (SVK), HOROSHILOV Alexandr (RUS), KOSTELIC Ivica (CRO), TERRA Ferran (SPA), SASAKI Akira (JPN), SKUBE Matic (SLO), IKUTA Yasuhiro (JPN), MYHRE Lars Elton (NOR), DOPFER Fritz (GER), COCHRAN Jimmy (USA), SIMARI BIRKNER Cristian Javier (ARG), VALENCIC Mitja (SLO), OLSSON Matts (SWE), VILETTA Sandro (SUI), COUSINEAU Julien (CAN), NEUREUTHER Felix (GER), RAJALA Jukka (FIN), LEINO Jukka (FIN), LONGHI Omar (ITA), HOFER Beni (SUI), COVILI Frederic (FRA), KARLSEN Truls Ove (NOR), JITLOFF Tim (USA), ZAMANSKY Jake (USA), GUFLER Michael (ITA), FREY Thomas (FRA), RICHARD Cyprien (FRA), SCHOERGHOFER Philipp (AUT), SPENCER Dane (USA), BURTIN Raphael (FRA), MISSILLIER Steve (FRA), SCHLOPY Erik (USA), REICHELT Hannes (AUT)

---

THE SCOOP
By Hank McKee

Men’s giant slalom, Sölden, Austria, Oct. 28, 2007

Skier, skis/boots/binding       
1. Svindal, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
2. Ligety, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
3. Palander, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
4. Raich, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
5. Miller, Head/Head/Tyrolia
6. Moelgg, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
7. Fanara, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
8. Cuche, Head/Head/Tyrolia
9. Schieppatti, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
10. Lanzinger, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer

Men’s giant slalom, Sölden, Austria, Oct. 28, 2007. … It is the first of 41 races on the men’s World Cup schedule for the 2007-08 season. … It is the first of eight scheduled giant slaloms. … It is the 20th World Cup race held at Sölden. … All of them GS’s and all held in October since 1993.
It is the eighth World Cup win for Aksel Lund Svindal. … His third in GS. … It is the first win for Norway at Sölden since Andrine Flemmen was involved in a three-way tie for the win in 2002. … Svindal is the first Norwegian male to win at Sölden. … He won two GS’s last season. … He had been sixth after the first run. … He is the defending World Cup champion.
    It is the seventh career World Cup podium for first-run leader Ted Ligety. … He has one win (Yongpyong GS March 5, 2006) and has now been second three times,  third three times, and fourth three times. … He has three GS podiums including this race, the win and a third at Beaver Creek last December. … His result matches that of Julia Mancuso from the first women’s race of the season to top the U.S. showing.
    It is the 28th career World Cup podium for Kalle Palander. … His 12th in GS and his second at Sölden, having also finished third in 2004. … Among Finns, only Tanja Poutiainen has recorded a better finish at the site (second in 2004).
    It is the 75th career top-five World Cup result for Bode Miller. … His 26th in GS. … He has never finished a race at Sölden worse than fifth, having won in 2003 and 2004 and placed fifth in 2001 and 2002. … He had been 17th after the first run. … It is the 22nd top-15 placing for Francois Bourque. … Nine of his 12 top-10 results have come in GS, including a fifth-place result at Sölden in 2005, still the best result at the site for a Canadian male. … Canadians John Kucera and Jean-Philippe Roy made the cut for second runs but failed to complete them.
    The United States (241) is third in the Nations Cup standings behind Austria (302) and Italy (252).

Overall standings
1. Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway, 100 points.
2. Ted Ligety, United States, 80.
3. Kalle Palander, Finland, 60.
4. Benjamin Raich, Austria, 50.
5. Bode Miller, United States, 45.
6. Manfred Moelgg, Italy, 40.
7. Thomas Fanara, France, 36.
8. Didier Cuche, Switzerland, 32.
9. Alberto Schieppati, Italy, 29.
10. Matthias Lanzinger, Austria, 26.

Giant slalom standings
1. Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway, 100 points.
2. Ted Ligety, United States, 80.
3. Kalle Palander, Finland, 60.
4. Benjamin Raich, Austria, 50.
5. Bode Miller, United States, 45.
6. Manfred Moelgg, Italy, 40.
7. Thomas Fanara, France, 36.
8. Didier Cuche, Switzerland, 32.
9. Alberto Schieppati, Italy, 29.
10. Matthias Lanzinger, Austria, 26.