Are: Mancuso targets gold after fastest GS 1st run

American Julia Mancuso is poised to prove that her Olympic giant slalom gold medal was no fluke. Mancuso surged to the front of the pack after the first run of GS Tuesday at the alpine World Championships, with Canadian Genevieve Simard, Czech Republic's Sarka Zahrobska, Austrian Nicole Hosp and Sweden’s Anna Ottosson close behind.
    Mancuso, silver medalist in super combined last week, led the run with a time of 1 minute, 13.55 seconds, with Zahrobska and Simard both 0.13 back and Hosp and Ottosson tied for fourth, 0.25 back. Swede Anja Paerson, winner of three golds already at the 2007 alpine worlds, was seventh, 0.44 behind.
    Most of the contenders in the field of 92 ran at the front of the pack, with Simard first out of the gate, Paerson second and Mancuso third.
    Other Americans in the field were Libby Ludlow, who skied into 24th, Jessica Kelley (36th) and Resi Stiegler (47th).
    Second run was set for 2 p.m. ET, noon MT.

ARE, Sweden — American Julia Mancuso is poised to prove that her Olympic giant slalom gold medal was no fluke. Mancuso surged to the front of the pack after the first run of GS Tuesday at the alpine World Championships, with Canadian Genevieve Simard, Czech Republic's Sarka Zahrobska, Austrian Nicole Hosp and Sweden’s Anna Ottosson close behind.
    Mancuso, silver medalist in super combined last week, led the run with a time of 1 minute, 13.55 seconds, with Zahrobska and Simard both .13 back and Hosp and Ottosson tied for fourth, .25 back. Swede Anja Paerson, winner of three golds already at the 2007 alpine worlds, was seventh, .44 behind.
    Most of the contenders in the field of 92 ran at the front of the pack, with Simard first out of the gate, Paerson second and Mancuso third.
    Other Americans in the field were Libby Ludlow, who skied into 24th, Jessica Kelley (36th) and Resi Stiegler (47th).
    Second run was set for 2 p.m. ET, noon MT.
    Mancuso hurried off after the first run to prepare for the second run and didn't speak to reporters, saying, "Sorry I'm going in," to the throng waiting to speak to her. Mancuso's time came despite getting caught off-balance and on her inside ski on the gate right above the vehicle tunnel underneath the course near the finish. She was on one ski for a split-second before recovering and skiing across the line to overtake Simard.
    Simard, who finished second in the GS at the World Cup Finals last March in Are, said she liked the first-run course set from the moment she saw it during inspection.
    "Turny and rhythmical, I like that for a GS course. Actually I love it," Simard said. "I saw the set the first gate and I loved the course right away. I think it was a matter of getting in a rhythm from the top and it runs fairly easy."
   Mancuso passed Simard with a tighter bottom section of the course, and Simard said she may have run the middle section a little straight between a few rolls in the course and "got a little low."
    "But I think that’s part of taking risks, so if I hadn’t done that maybe I’d been slower, who knows," she added. "But the way to go is to take risks, so I plan on doing the same second run."
    Simard said she was inspired by watching men's teammate Jan Hudec win a silver medal in downhill a few days ago.
    "I’m hoping I can be there tomorrow night, but first I have to think about my skiing — my good skiing  — what works. I have to do it for two runs and the rest should follow," said Simard, who finished fifth in the GS at the Olympics last season.    
    Mancuso, the Olympic champion in the GS, is targeting her fourth World Championships medal. No. 3 came Feb. 9 when she was second to Paerson in the super combi. At the 2005 Bormio worlds, she took bronze in GS and super G. One more medal would tie her with Tamara McKinney for second on the all-time worlds medal list for U.S skiers. Bode Miller leads the pack with five.
    Hosp became Austria's best chance for the country's first gold of the championships, crossing fourth in 1:13.80. ''I'm not very satisfied because it was icier than I expected,'' said Hosp, who is still seeking her first major championship title. ''I am expecting a lot in the second run because the gaps are big.''
    Hosp leads the World Cup giant slalom standings with one win and one second-place result. She took a surprise bronze medal in Sunday's downhill.
    ''All the racers were surprised by the course setting. We expected it to be set straighter because Anja likes that,'' Hosp added.
    The course was set by Anja Paerson's father and coach.
    ''It was turny and rhythmical and I like that for GS courses,'' Simard said.
    Paerson, who has won all three races at the championships so far and became the first skier with world titles in all five disciplines when she won Sunday's downhill, was seventh in 1:13.99, leaving herself 0.44 to make up in the second leg.
    Paerson, the two-time defending giant slalom champion, is aiming for a record fourth straight gold medal.
    But her best finish in GS this season was sixth in the World Cup race in Semmering, Austria, in December. She is only 17th in the World Cup discipline standings and has only finished two of four GS races this season.
    ''I got off to a pretty slow start and the snow was pretty aggressive,'' Paerson said.
    Marlies Schild, who won bronze in the combined, took a bad fall.

— Don Cameron and The Associated Press contributed to this story

Are World Championships women's GS first-run results

< td class="ir_20" align="right" style="padding-right: 7px"> 58