World Cup Rewind: Swiss women prevail on home turf

St. Moritz proved most generous to its own last weekend, providing the Swiss women
with their best team results in years. Not only did young Lara Gut achieve her first World
Cup victory  on home turf in  the super G race (and missed the podium by .2 seconds with
a fifth place in super-combined), but rising star Fabienne Suter had arguably the best
weekend of her World Cup career, landing third on the super-combined podium then
beside Gut with a silver in SG. Also, Swiss racer Andrea Dettling notched her first World
Cup top 10 with a sixth place in SG and veteran Fraenzi Aufdenblatten was close behind
in seventh.
St. Moritz proved most generous to its own last weekend, providing the Swiss women
with their best team results in years. Not only did young Lara Gut achieve her first World
Cup victory  on home turf in  the super G race (and missed the podium by .2 seconds with
a fifth place in super-combined), but rising star Fabienne Suter had arguably the best
weekend of her World Cup career, landing third on the super-combined podium then
beside Gut with a silver in SG. Also, Swiss racer Andrea Dettling notched her first World
Cup top 10 with a sixth place in SG and veteran Fraenzi Aufdenblatten was close behind
in seventh.

The venue was also — not for the first time –  good to Swedish ski queen Anja Paerson,
who handily won the super-combined by more than a second, then barely missed the SG
podium, finishing fourth behind Italy’s Nadia Fanchini.

Austrian Nicole Hosp chiseled a few points onto the board, too, taking second in super-
combined and fifth in SG.

After high winds cancelled Sunday’s downhill at St. Moritz, the re-scheduled date and
location have yet to be determined, but must take place sometime before World Cup
Finals beginning March 15 in Are, Sweden. The second downhill in Lake Louise has
been postponed to Jan. 23 in Cortina, Italy, and the next DH race in the circuit won’t
happen until Jan. 18 at Zauchensee, Austria.

Thus, World Cup defending downhill champ Lindsey Vonn and other speed specialists
will have to pile seven downhill races into eight weeks.
Vonn, who still leads the World Cup overall, had an unfortunate run of things in St.
Moritz, skiing off-course in the slalom portion of the combined race, then again in the
super-G.

Julia Mancuso, who continues to recover from back and hip problems, put down the best
U.S. women’s result of the weekend, with a 13th place in SG.

Coach Jim Tracy pointed out that in the next few weeks, Mancuso’s results will be
storming back into the top-10 range, and that the team’s young guns, such as Keely
Kelleher, who earned her first World Cup points with a 27th-place in SG, will continue to
rise up the ranks. Leanne Smith was poised in fourth after the super G portion of last
weekend’s combined race, while teammates Chelsea Marshall and Kelleher were in 10th
and 12th, respectively, but Smith was disqualified in the slalom, Marshall finished 29th
and Kelleher 32nd.

Part of the U.S. women’s team spent Monday morning signing autographs at the Munich
Airport before flying home for Christmas, but the tech racers will be back in force on
Saturday and Sunday as the Word Cup continues with giant slalom and slalom racing in
Semmering, Austria.