Are: Knight says GS course made to be attacked

ARE, Sweden — U.S. women’s slalom/GS coach Chris Knight is a New Zealander whose thick accent makes one immediately think of catching the next plane to the sunny Southern Hemisphere while enduring the deep freeze in Sweden at these World Championships.
    But talking to Knight late Monday on the eve of the women’s giant slalom, he sounded quite happy after spending a cold day on the training hill with his four GS racers, each of whom Knight believes can go for broke on a fair course that’s not especially difficult.
    “You don’t need to hold back at all,” Knight said. “The snow is fantastic. Nothing worries me about it, it’s perfect.
ARE, Sweden — U.S. women’s slalom/GS coach Chris Knight is a New Zealander whose thick accent makes one immediately think of catching the next plane to the sunny Southern Hemisphere while enduring the deep freeze in Sweden at these World Championships.
    But talking to Knight late Monday on the eve of the women’s giant slalom, he sounded quite happy after spending a cold day on the training hill with his four GS racers, each of whom Knight believes can go for broke on a fair course that’s not especially difficult.
    “You don’t need to hold back at all,” Knight said. “The snow is fantastic. Nothing worries me about it, it’s perfect. I think, after 92 girls, you could probably still have the fastest time down it, it’s that dense and hard snow. It won’t get really rutted up; it’ll be smooth the whole way down.
    “It’s good terrain. It varies. It’s reasonably steep on top, then it’s medium rolling to the bottom. I think you can really let it go, absolutely have no second thoughts about risking everything down there.”
    Knight will start reigning Olympic GS champ Julia Mancuso, Resi Stiegler, Libby Ludlow and Jess Kelley in Tuesday’s race, the first night event of these World Championships. The first run is scheduled for 5 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET), with the second run set for 8 p.m. under blazing halogen light poles alongside the length of the Olympia course.
    Sweden’s Anja Paerson is the defending world champion in the event, and she’s been unbeatable so far this year, winning three gold medals in the speed events. Mancuso finished second behind Paerson in the super combined last Friday, and Knight said he liked the energy he saw from his star in training Monday.
    “For sure, I was a little bit concerned about how she would come out and ski after such a long, demanding speed week,” he said. “But she was back on form straightaway. By the fifth turn she was confident in her position and what she was doing. And she’s got a game-day attitude, so I think when she gets in the start gate she’ll be ready to go.”
    The action will heat up early as Mancuso is third out of the gate, right behind Paerson in second. An expected overflow crowd will be buzzing from the start. Current World Cup GS leader Nicole Hosp of Austria will ski fifth.  
    The next U.S. racer out of the gate will be Ludlow in 28th, followed by Kelley 33rd and Stiegler 48th in the 92-racer field containing athletes from 38 nations.  
    “For Resi, Libby and Jess, if they can produce what they do in training and their best runs in races the past couple of years and a little better than that, then I’ll be really happy with them,” Knight said. “With Jules, the sky’s the limit for her.”
    The women’s GS field was minutes away from being trimmed to 86 racers Monday night at the team captains meeting when coaches from Latvia and Turkey failed to show up in time for the roll call. FIS race chief Atle Skaardal had the four racers from Latvia and two from Turkey pulled from the board, but he allowed them back in the field after their respective coaches showed up — the Latvian coach about 10 minutes later and two coaches from Turkey about 25 minutes into the meeting. Skaardal warned the coaches to be on time in the future or an exception may not be made again.