Bormio: Miller aims for Europe WC DH win No. 1

The last men’s competitions of the year are scheduled this week in Bormio, Italy, where two downhill races will be held Thursday and Friday on the treacherous Stelvio course that hosted the 2005 World Championships. The Austrian men, who have just one win this season — at the season-opening slalom in Levi, Finland — hope these events will be turning points.
    Veteran Fritz Strobl, the 2002 Olympic champion in downhill, is in fact the only Austrian to have reached a podium this winter in this specialty — quite an unusual situation for the once-so-dominant ski empire, which aims to strike back after a series of 13 unexpected defeats in all five alpine disciplines.

BORMIO, Italy — The last men’s competitions of the year are scheduled this week in Bormio, Italy, where two downhill races will be held Thursday and Friday on the treacherous Stelvio course that hosted the 2005 World Championships. The Austrian men, who have just one win this season — at the season-opening slalom in Levi, Finland — hope these events will be turning points.
    Veteran Fritz Strobl, the 2002 Olympic champion in downhill, is in fact the only Austrian to have reached a podium this winter in this specialty — quite an unusual situation for the once-so-dominant ski empire, which aims to strike back after a series of 13 unexpected defeats in all five alpine disciplines.
    Michael Walchhofer, the defending downhill World Cup champion, is only seventh in the standings heading into Bormio’s double event, 119 points behind leader Didier Cuche from Switzerland, who was second in Beaver Creek, Colorado, and Val Gardena, Italy. Strobl, a six-time podium finisher here and a winner in 2001, is only eighth in DH standings and Hermann Maier a distant 10th.
    Only now-retired American Daron Rahlves was able to beat the Austrian armada in the past 10 years of World Cup racing on the Stelvio, while Bode Miller clinched gold here during the 2005 FIS worlds.
    Miller, a winner on Beaver Creek’s demanding Birds of Prey downhill earlier this month, has never won a World Cup downhill in Europe. He recently captured two super G races in Val Gardena and Hinterstoder, showing as much determination as concentration on his way down both difficult runs.
    The 2005 overall World Cup champions explained after these impressive victories that his main goal while racing is always achieving his best possible run to eventually win the competition. “When I’m at the start of a race, I mostly try to figure out how fast I can run that course, that’s the most fun objective for me anyway,” he said at Hinterstoder after his second super G triumph within a week.
    “I didn’t really expect to win,” he explained. “I can be pleased with my position today, yet certainly not with my run, which was not good at all. I didn’t execute the way I was planning.”
    It’s not all about winning for Miller, who also cares a lot about his style and his technique while cruising down a racecourse.
    At the postrace press conference in Hinterstoder, the American mentioned other meaningful targets he envisions, such as winning a world title in slalom at Are in February. So far, Miller clinched gold in the other four events at St. Moritz in 2003 and Bormio in 2005. The skier from New Hampshire also seeks crystal globes in downhill and slalom after having grabbed the World Cup titles in giant slalom in 2004 and super G in 2005.
     The Austrians have held the downhill World Cup title since March 2000, when Maier set a record of 2,000 World Cup points in the overall standings. The following season, he again “Herminated” the tour with 13 wins, equaling the record set by Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark in 1979.
     Miller said he’s capable of matching both marks with some solid racing during the coming weeks and months. Thanks to his new equipment, he seems able to achieve his potential without taking as many risks as in recent seasons.
    PARITY: Eleven skiers from nine different nations have managed to win races in the first part of the 2006-07 World Cup season on the men’s circuit. Switzerland and France aim to join that exclusive club and their coaches mostly count on experts such as Didier Cuche, the leader in the downhill standings, and Antoine Deneriaz, the Olympic Champion who dramatically lost his right ski only a few seconds after starting his run on the Val Gardena downhill course recently.
    Both have the talent and the strength of mind to excel in Bormio this week and prevent the possible comeback of the Austrian team before the end of the year.
     Cuche won two demanding downhill races at Kitzbühel in 1998 and Garmisch-Partenkirchen three years ago. Deneriaz, a two-time winner in Val Gardena in past years, showed his good form by achieving two solid performances in super G in Lake Louise and Hinterstoder.
     Italy’s Peter Fill, third in downhill at Lake Louise and second behind Miller in Hinterstoder’s super G, would love to earn his first World Cup win on home soil.
    NYMAN AMPED: American Steven Nyman, out of reach for his rivals at Val Gardena two weeks ago, also feels very inspired by the tough Stelvio run, which requires aggressive skiing from the first to the last meter. “I love Bormio for the intensity factor, it’s very long, rough and consistently coming at you,” said Nyman, who trained hard this summer with his former girlfriend, Julia Mancuso, to improve his physical condition and his concentration.
    “There are so many turns and it’s mostly icy, so it’s a true fight but it’s fun too,” Nyman added. “You have to be a very good skier to win here, it’s no fluke to excel on this course. It’s so fast — all the time. There are no places to rest; you have to be on top of your game to sort of control your run. There is so much action all the time, it’s so challenging.
    “In fact you can be proud of yourself even if you don’t win it! You can be happy just to make it safe to the finish line — as I was at Val Gardena. I didn’t expect to win Val Gardena, I was mostly aiming to stay healthy after badly crashing during the first training run. So it was a great surprise for me too.”
    Besides Strobl, Walchhofer and Maier, Austrian coaches also can count on Hans Grugger, an unexpected winner here two years ago before his bad crash last season, or Mario Scheiber to battle for victory Thursday and Friday.