McKee's McThoughts: My annual "recruiting" report

I sat at my computer the other day and went on a recruiting trip.
    I make it an annual electron excursion to check what happened at various national championships and see if I can learn anything, so it made sense to combine that with a little window shopping. And we did learn a few things. For instance:
    — Norwegians never stop
    — Scandinavia has a raft of young future stars
    — Weather was a problem in many countries
    — Denise Karbon, Marlies Schild and Nicole Hosp performed as expected
    — The French men know how to ski slalom
    That’s not really earth shattering news. But there were some dominant performances, and not all of it from the usual sources. Some of it came from fresh stars. All in all, the journey around the alpine world was pretty enlightening.

I SAT AY MY computer the other day and went on a recruiting trip.
    I make it an annual electron excursion to check what happened at various national championships and see if I can learn anything, so it made sense to combine that with a little window shopping. And we did learn a few things. For instance:
    — Norwegians never stop
    — Scandinavia has a raft of young future stars
    — Weather was a problem in many countries
    — Denise Karbon, Marlies Schild and Nicole Hosp performed as expected
    — The French men know how to ski slalom

    That’s not really earth shattering news. But there were some dominant performances, and not all of it from the usual sources. Some of it came from fresh stars. All in all, the journey around the alpine world was pretty enlightening.

First stop, Sweden
The Swedes are generally young. Jessica Lindell-Vikarby won what she expected, earning the downhill, super G and GS championships. Hans Olsson — like Lindell-Vikarby. age 24 — won the downhill and combined, but Matts Olsson, 19, won the super G. Kajsa Kling, 19, won the combined, (and was second in DH). Daniel Ericsson, 21, was top six three times, twice on the podium.
    Veronica Smed, just 20, was third in GS, fourth in super G, fifth in combined and sixth in downhill. Andreas Romar, a year younger, was fourth in super G and fifth in downhill, but I don’t want to read too much into these latter results. The Swedes aren’t known for their speed skiers.
    Still the quality of racer at such tender ages is indicative of something positive, seems to me.

Norway
Norwegians really hate to go away. Thirty-eight-year-old Lasse Kjus got out of the garment factory — he has his name on a ski clothing line — dusted off the long boards and showed up to race. So did Truls Ove Karlsen, the latter winning both of his gate races, the former cruising to third in the downhill.
    The “Old Guard” was further represented by the current crop of Cup racers: Lars Elton Myhre was second three times and Kjetil Jansrud was second, third and fourth in GS, combined and super G respectively.
    But, like Sweden, Norway saw a pretty young field putting up impressive results.  Lene Loeseth, 21, won both gates races and the combined, which will give her bragging rights at the Loeseth Summer Reunion. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Loeseth hanging around a podium. Nina, 19, was second in combined, second in slalom and fourth in GS. Mona, 17, was second in GS and fourth in super G.
    Even without the Loeseth clan youth was a controling factor. Kristina Riis-Johannessen, 17, won the super G half to finish third in combined. Lotte Smiseth Sejersted, 17, was second in downhill and fifth in GS. Thea Grosvold, 18, won the downhill, was third in both super G and GS. Markus Nilssen, 19, had a good outing as well with third in GS, fourth in combined and fifth in super G. Anne Cecilie Brusletto, 20, was second in super G and fourth in slalom. There is definitely some youth evident.

Italy
Denise Karbon won the GS, as expected, and the Fanchini sisters had their way in the speed races at Bardonecchia, placing first and second in both the downhill and super G, Nadia first then Elena in both cases.
    A couple of French guys came to strut their stuff in slalom (I’m telling you, pay attention to the French slalom team). Thomas Mermillod Blondin got the win and teammate Alexandre Anselmet was second.
    Generally speaking, the Italian championships were a showcase for a mature team, one of the youngest skiers scoring well was 21 and Swiss Pascal Berthod. Nicole Gius, 27, took the women’s slalom. But there was one young skier who warrants keeping an eye on: 16-year-old Lisa Magdalen Agerer was second in GS, four-tenths behind Karbon and third in SG. More interesting is who she was ahead of in that GS: Berthod, Camilla Alfieri and Chiara Costazza — all World Cup veterans.

Germany
The Germans also demonstrated a relatively young team. Twenty-two-year-old Fanny Chmelar hit for the cycle, winning the combined, second in downhill, third in slalom, fourth in super G and fifth in GS. Viktoria Rebensburg, 19, won the GS and super G. Monika Springl, 21, had podiums in combined and super G. Gina Stechert, 20, won the downhill and was second in GS, super G and combined.
    On the guys side, Hannes Wagner, 22, was a triple winner, in downhill, super G and combined.
Cup star Maria Riesch had one top-six result, in GS, her worst discipline.
    As might be expected, Monika Bergmann won the women’s slalom. But Felix Neureuther, though GS champion, missed the slalom crown to Czech Krystof Kryzl.

Switzerland
The Swiss struggled to get the races in, never getting the downhills held. Really, there were no major surprises. Didier Cuche won the SG. Daniel Albrecht won two (GS and SL) and Fraenzi Aufdenblatten won two (SG and GS). Marc Gini was first in combined and seconc in GS.

Austria
As might be expected,a veteran team showed in full with some anticipated results: Marlies Schild won the slalom, Nicole Hosp the GS. Kathrin Zettel was second in both those races, 1.25 seconds behind Schild and 0.12 back of Hosp.     Reinfried Herbst got men’s slalom. Klaus Kroell took the downhill over Michael Walchhofer.
    Not everything was according to the FIS point profiles though. Michaela Kirchgasser, considered by me at least to be a gate skier, won the downhill over Silvia Berger and Florian Scheiber, 21, won the SG. Berger took the women’s super G over Renate Goetschl by a tenth. Romed Baumann, 22, took the men’s GS. Nicole Schmidhofer, 19, had two top fives in the speed events and Bernadette Schild, 18, was fourth in the slalom.
    As usual, there are youngsters knocking firmly on the door and providing incentive for the “A” team to keep stepping it up.

Slovenia
There was one huge factor coming out of Slovenia and her name was Ilka Stuhec. The 17-year-old swept the championships winning the downhill (six tenths), super G (six tenths), GS (one point four seconds) and slalom (five tenths). Otherwise, Andrej Sporn won downhill and GS, Rok Perko the super G and Croatian Dalibor Samsal, 22, won the slalom. Stuhec was mighty impr
essive.

France
Credit Marie Marchand-Arvier for a pair of wins, combined and super G. Yannick Bertrand got the downhill title, David Poisson the super G title. Tessa Worley, 19, was second in both gate races. Claire Dautherives won the women’s slalom.
    But it was men’s slalom we wanted to look at and it did not disappoint. Thomas Mermillod Blondin, the man who won the Italian title, was sixth, 1.55 seconds back. Pierre Paquin was fifth. Steve Missillier made the podium, 0.27 back. World Cup slalom runner-up Jean-Baptiste Grange was second by a hundredth. Winning was Julien Lizeroux, a man who has never recorded a World Cup podium.

    All in all we learned enough to consider it a successful journey around the alpine world, and we got some candidates for the McThoughts All-Name team: Stuhec, Kryzl, Lotte Smiseth Sejersted, Smed, Kajsa Kling. Not sure they earned a berth just yet, but we’ll keep an eye out.