Early mistake knocks Hurt back to 18th in world junior SG

The ladies made their World Junior Championship debut in the super G in Bansko, Bulgaria with a single U.S. female representing team USA. The 2019 junior worlds silver medalists and World Cup rising star, AJ Hurt, opened up the women’s events with a top-20 super G finish. 

Hurt pushed out the start, charging hard, a day after scoring another round of World Cup GS points in Jasna, Slovakia. She has claimed her place on the World Cup circuit, scoring points across four disciplines. After finishing sixth in the last world juniors super G, Hurt was hungry to take a stand on the podium today. 

Strong winds showed tilting gates, fluttering advertising banners, and irregular snow drifting across the course. But according to coaches on the ground, the heavy winds did not significantly impact on the results. “The wind conditions were certainly not identical for everyone, but the images in the live stream may have been misleading, because the result was not influenced too much by the wind,” said the Swiss coach Hans Flatscher.

Hurt pushed out as Bib 9 on a super G course that resembled more of a GS with sweeping turns taking up the entirety of the arena. Hurt immediately took a line that was too direct and lost time by the fourth gate, getting low and late, scrubbing the majority of her speed. Hurt is a fighter and continued to work her way back on line. By the last four gates she had found her line and aerodynamics through the finish line, but would fall back to 18th place in the small field of 37 starters. 

“Definitely not the result I was looking for today,” said Hurt. “I made a couple mistakes that cost me a bit of time but it’s a fun hill and I’m excited for the next couple days of GS and slalom.”

Missing from the start list were the remaining three U.S. world junior teammates: Allie Resnick, Nicola Rountree-Williams, and Zoe Zimmermann. The tech ladies will make their world juniors debut in the GS tomorrow. Hurt and her teammates return to the hill tomorrow for giant slalom. Live streaming can be seen at https://bansko2021.ski/live.