Hirscher wins World Cup giant slalom, Ligety tenth

Austrian Marcel Hirscher won a World Cup giant slalom today (Dec. 13) in Val d’Isere, France. The win, the 20-year-old’s first career World Cup victory, capped an impressive weekend for the Austrian team as the men in red claimed all three victories and six of ten podium spots.

Hirscher (2:16.28) was joined on today’s podium by teammate and this weekend’s super combined winner, Benjamin Raich (2:17.60), who finished third. Italian Massimiliano (2:17.05) Blardone finished second.

“I was a little more nervous than usual because I was leading for the first time after the first run,” said Hirscher. “I then heard that Blardone was top and just told myself ‘go for it, boy.’ I ran out of energy in the final section but it worked out.”

The blinding fog and snow of yesterday’s super G was a distant memory as clear skies and above freezing temperatures made today’s race a much more pleasant affair.

American Ted Ligety had the fastest second-run time, but his first run time (1:08.57, 15th) dragged him down to a tenth-place finish.

“I did pretty poorly the first run, I probably made two and half seconds worth of mistakes,” said Ligety, who is winless thus far this season.“It’s been pretty stressful so far making all these mistakes every single race. I have yet to have close to two clean runs, so hopefully it happens at Alta Badia, I would really like to win there.”   

Tim Jitloff (28) and Jake Zamansky (27) were the only other Americans to earn a second run with top-30 first runs. Bode Miller missed today’s race after spraining an ankle during dryland training yesterday and opting to rest it for next week’s four-race push in Italy.

A mustache-less Robbie Dixon, the only Canadian to earn a second run, had a wild ride down the Bellevarde but held on for a 26th-place finish.

Triple winner in Beaver Creek, Swiss Carlo Janka, continued his slump today, failing to finish the first run for his third DNF in three days. That, combined with Raich’s two-podium weekend, put Raich in the lead of the overall standings, ahead of Janka by 26 points. Raich also controls the lead of the overall GS and combined points races.

The challenging Face de Bellevarde slope was up to its old tricks today, as 20 racers failed to finish the first run. The steep, technical course got the better of 32 racers in yesterday’s super G.

Men’s alpine World Cup racing now shifts to Val Gardena, Italy for a super G Dec.18 and a downhill Dec. 19, followed by a giant slalom Dec. 20 and slalom Dec. 21 in Alta Badia.

By Eric Williams

Image: Marcel Hirscher wins his first World Cup ski race. (Gepa)

The SCOOP
By Hank McKee
Equipment
Men’s Giant Slalom, Val d’Isere, France, Dec. 13, 2009
Skier, skis/boots/bindings
1 Hirscher, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
2 Blardone, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
3 Raich, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
4 Moelgg, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
5 Svindal, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
6 Baumann, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
7 Schoerghofer, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
8 Larsson, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
9 Ploner, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
10 Ligety, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol

Men’s Giant Slalom, Val d’Isere, France, Dec. 13, 2009. … It is the tenth race of the men’s 35 race 2009-2010 World Cup schedule. … The third of seven scheduled giant slaloms. … It is the 150th Cup race held at least in part at Val d’Isere. …  And the 40th GS. … It is the third and final race of a three race set. … Michael VonGruenigen holds the GS mark at the site with four wins from 1994 through 2002.  … Phil Mahre and Bode Miller are the only U.S. males to win a World Cup GS at Val d’Isere.

It is the first career win for Marcel Hirscher and his first Cup podium in GS. … It is his second podium of the season and weekend having placed second in the combined at Val d’Isere on Friday. … At 20 years nine months he is the youngest male Cup GS winner since Pirmin Zurbriggen won at Sansicario in March 1982.

It is the 18th career World Cup podium for Massimiliano Blardone, all of them in GS. … He was also second in GS at Val d’Isere exactly a year ago. … It is his first podium of the season, though he was fourth at Soelden.

It is the 84th career World Cup podium for Benjamin Raich. … His 32nd in GS. … His third career podium at Val d’Isere, second of the weekend having won the combined on Friday. … It is his fourth podium of the season.

It is the 54th career World Cup top 10 for Ted Ligety. … his fifth of the season. … He was the only racer in the top 10 using Rossignol skis. … It is the fifth career World Cup scoring result for Jake Zamansky, all in GS. … And his second of the season. … It is the fifth career scoring result for Tim Jitloff. … His first of the season.

Raich moves into the lead of the World Cup overall standings 486-460 over Carlo Janka (DNF 1st in race). … Didier Cuche (DNS sore back) sits third at 384. … Ligety is the top American in fifth at 281. … Raich also leads the GS standings 185-160 over Janka with Ligety third at 156. … Austria leads the men’s Nations Cup 1695-1500 over Switzerland with Italy third at 993. … The U.S. is fifth (behind France) with 560. … Canada seventh at 432.

Rank	Bib	FIS Code	Name	Year	Nation	Run 1	Run 2	Total Time	FIS Points
1	11	53831	HIRSCHER Marcel	1989	AUT	1:06.39	1:09.89	2:16.28	0.00
2	5	292000	BLARDONE Massimiliano	1979	ITA	1:06.44	1:10.61	2:17.05	4.97
3	2	50625	RAICH Benjamin	1978	AUT	1:07.32	1:10.28	2:17.60	8.52
4	16	292491	MOELGG Manfred	1982	ITA	1:06.88	1:10.80	2:17.68	9.04
5	1	421328	SVINDAL Aksel Lund	1982	NOR	1:07.45	1:10.36	2:17.81	9.88
6	8	51215	BAUMANN Romed	1986	AUT	1:06.63	1:11.45	2:18.08	11.62
7	9	51007	SCHOERGHOFER Philipp	1983	AUT	1:06.76	1:11.35	2:18.11	11.82
8	23	500656	LARSSON Markus	1979	SWE	1:07.73	1:10.53	2:18.26	12.79
9	21	290693	PLONER Alexander	1978	ITA	1:07.11	1:11.21	2:18.32	13.17
10	3	534562	LIGETY Ted	1984	USA	1:08.57	1:09.86	2:18.43	13.88
11	26	292250	SCHIEPPATI Alberto	1981	ITA	1:08.86	1:10.36	2:19.22	18.98
12	13	510997	BERTHOD Marc	1983	SUI	1:08.09	1:11.25	2:19.34	19.76
13	20	192506	MISSILLIER Steve	1984	FRA	1:08.49	1:10.97	2:19.46	20.53
14	37	292056	GUFLER Michael	1979	ITA	1:09.36	1:10.34	2:19.70	22.08
15	25	420148	KARLSEN Truls Ove	1975	NOR	1:09.04	1:10.91	2:19.95	23.70
16	19	191746	DE TESSIERES Gauthier	1981	FRA	1:08.10	1:11.89	2:19.99	23.96
17	31	191459	LIZEROUX Julien	1979	FRA	1:09.61	1:10.55	2:20.16	25.05
18	30	192504	MERMILLOD BLONDIN Thomas	1984	FRA	1:09.11	1:11.16	2:20.27	25.76
19	29	560406	GORZA Ales	1980	SLO	1:08.40	1:12.06	2:20.46	26.99
20	42	201702	NEUREUTHER Felix	1984	GER	1:09.30	1:11.22	2:20.52	27.38
21	54	561032	JAZBEC Janez	1984	SLO	1:09.32	1:11.62	2:20.94	30.09
22	48	191778	PICHOT Sebastien	1981	FRA	1:10.09	1:10.87	2:20.96	30.22
23	39	51159	NOESIG Christoph	1985	AUT	1:09.90	1:11.13	2:21.03	30.67
24	15	191423	RICHARD Cyprien	1979	FRA	1:08.80	1:13.07	2:21.87	36.10
25	33	421669	HAUGEN Leif Kristian	1987	NOR	1:10.08	1:12.02	2:22.10	37.58
26	32	102961	DIXON Robbie	1985	CAN	1:09.77	1:12.82	2:22.59	40.75
27	28	533397	ZAMANSKY Jake	1981	USA	1:09.65	1:13.23	2:22.88	42.62
28	24	534959	JITLOFF Tim	1985	USA	1:10.34	1:13.23	2:23.57	47.07
Did not start 1st run
	52	531799	FORD Tommy	1989	USA
	17	532431	MILLER Bode	1977	USA
	7	510030	CUCHE Didier	1974	SUI
Did not qualify 1st run
	62	481006	ZUEV Stepan	1988	RUS
	61	700724	BABUSIAK Jaroslav	1984	SVK
	60	102456	BIGGS Patrick	1982	CAN
	57	690413	FANTINO Antonio	1991	ITA
	56	30149	SIMARI BIRKNER Cristian Javier	1980	ARG
	53	192653	FREY Thomas	1984	FRA
	51	150398	BANK Ondrej	1980	CZE
	47	51401	GRAF Bernhard	1988	AUT
	44	192746	THEAUX Adrien	1984	FRA
	41	102912	SPENCE Brad	1984	CAN
	36	103512	FRISCH Jeffrey	1984	CAN
	4	421483	JANSRUD Kjetil	1985	NOR
Did not finish 2nd run
	34	150644	KRYZL Krystof	1986	CZE
	12	50742	REICHELT Hannes	1980	AUT
Did not finish 1st run
	65	430387	ILEWICZ Jakub	1987	POL
	64	90047	GEORGIEV Stefan	1977	BUL
	63	561085	KRIZAJ Andrej	1986	SLO
	59	511383	FEUZ Beat	1987	SUI
	58	380290	SAMSAL Dalibor	1985	CRO
	55	294348	PERAUDO Adam	1987	ITA
	50	501017	MYHRER Andre	1983	SWE
	49	501026	RAINER Niklas	1983	SWE
	46	51258	ZACH Michael	1986	AUT
	45	53853	SIEBER Bjoern	1989	AUT
	43	194364	PINTURAULT Alexis	1991	FRA
	40	290910	LONGHI Omar	1980	ITA
	38	501324	OLSSON Matts	1988	SWE
	35	290896	HELL Wolfgang	1980	ITA
	27	102814	BOURQUE Francois	1984	CAN
	22	511352	VILETTA Sandro	1986	SUI
	18	101895	ROY Jean-Philippe	1979	CAN
	14	510727	DEFAGO Didier	1977	SUI
	10	292120	SIMONCELLI Davide	1979	ITA
	6	511313	JANKA Carlo	1986	SUI