Are: Notebook: Germans shine; Ludlow struggles

ARE, Sweden — The German team had a lot to celebrate Tuesday night at the World Championships women's giant slalom. Libby Ludlow of the U.S. Ski Team, meanwhile, was lamenting a lost opportunity.

ARE, Sweden — The German team had a lot to celebrate Tuesday night at the World Championships women's giant slalom.
    Libby Ludlow of the U.S. Ski Team, meanwhile, was lamenting a lost opportunity.
    The up-and-coming Germans had two racers finish in the top 10 — Kathrin Hoelzl started eighth and finished in sixth place, about a second-and-a-half off Nicole Hosp’s winning time.
    Maria Riesch added a 23rd-place finish.
    Hoelzl’s teammate, Viktoria Rebensburg, finished eighth after starting 35th. The 17-year-old had a scorching second run — third-fastest — and overcame a disappointing first run in which she was nearly two seconds behind American Julia Mancuso’s leading time.
    In the finish area, Germany’s coaches and staff were high-fiving and hugging the two skiers and each other.
    “It was amazing. I made a lot of mistakes, but I was fast,” Rebensburg  said. “I was really disappointed in the first run. I didn’t show what I can do in that run, but I did in the second run.”
    The teenager was wide-eyed with excitement as she was ushered for interviews to German television and radio reporters. She pumped her fist in the air in a Tiger Woods-like move when skier after skier couldn’t match or beat her or her teammates' times.
    When asked how she skied so fast in her first World Championships during her first year skiing on the World Cup circuit, Rebensburg shrugged and guessed that her secret was “fast skiing.”
    “I don’t really know. It’s amazing to me,” she said.
    The teen has raced in five FIS World Cup races this year. Four she did not finish and in the other, a super G in December in Reiteralm, Austria, she placed 38th. Making such a huge jump to finish eighth on Tuesday night may be nothing short of heroic.
    Rebensburg, who loves to listen to music and play soccer, started skiing 14 years ago and quickly climbed the ranks of local ski clubs and then to the German national team.
    What does she think about her first World Championships?
    “Because it’s my first one, that makes it special. I have to participate in others and then I’ll be able to say more,” she quipped.

GS A LETDOWN FOR LUDLOW: Libby Ludlow is nothing short of a perfectionist when it comes to ski racing, and her 29th-place effort in Tuesday night’s giant slalom wasn’t what the U.S. Ski Teamer had in mind after finishing a solid ninth in the super G last week at the World Championships.
    Ludlow, 25, was competing in her first World Championships GS race, and she’s always been stronger in super G on the World Cup level. But Ludlow said she has a goal of earning a spot in GS at World Cup Finals next month and was hoping to use a top 10 or even top-five result as a springboard into the stretch run of the season.
    “I’m really proud of my super G performance, and I was really hopeful for the GS. I thought I totally had a chance to be in there, top 10 or top six,” Ludlow said. “So this is a bit of a letdown.”
    Ludlow said her equipment wasn’t up to par in the first run. A boot unbuckled midway through, and she said her skis weren’t tuned exactly how they should have been for what she called the “crazy aggressive” snow on the course.
    “I think that was the biggest factor today. [The snow was] completely different than any of the training hills we were on,” she said. “It’s quite hard to anticipate what it was going to be like.”
    The U.S. team had been training at a different slope 10 kilometers down the road from Are on what Ludlow termed “fluffy aggressive” snow. The snow on the course Tuesday night was much icier, she said.
    Another challenge was two completely different types of course sets. The first featured wider turns while the second was much tighter. Ludlow said she thought the first set had better flow, and she struggled to find the right tempo her second time down. Her split times were slower, and she fell further back in the final results despite skiing aggressively. “I was just trying — it maybe didn’t look like it — but I was trying to win the run,” she said. “That’s all you can do when you’re that far back, and it just didn’t work out.”
    Ludlow will resume her quest for the Finals spot in GS at Sierra Nevada, Spain, on Feb. 24. Then it’s on to Zwiesel, Germany, in early March for the last GS before the Finals in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.  
    “I do have high expectations and I’m hard on myself. I think it’s really important to put the disappointment of today behind me and move forward,” Ludlow said. “Sierra Nevada will be great. I have two more runs to try to make World Cup Finals in GS and that would be a big accomplishment for me.”