European Report: Miller shrugs off missed chance; Austrians optimistic
European Report: Miller shrugs off missed chance; Austrians optimistic{mosimage}Bode Miller shrugged off his mistake in Sunday’s slalom at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, when he squandered a chance to bolster his lead over challengers Hermann Maier, Stephan Eberharter and Benjamin Raich in the World Cup overall race.
Miller vaulted into the lead after winning Saturday’s giant slalom, but missed a gate Sunday and missed out on points. With six races remaining this season, only two favor Miller in the gates while there are four speed races (two super G’s and two downhills) which favor Maier and two-time defending champion Eberharter.
“I’ll just have to ski fast in the downhill and super G,” Miller said in a press conference Sunday. “I would have liked to ski fast in both anyway, but now I have to. I’ll definitely need points in the super G and downhill because the way Maier is skiing, he can win those.”
Miller skied with typical all-or-nothing abandon. This time he got nothing, but he said he’d never change his racing style.
“I wouldn’t change my tactic if I could,” Miller said. “Things happen pretty quickly in slalom. It doesn’t mean if you take risks you’ll go out. Just like you can take no risks at all and still go out on the fifth gate. That’s slalom. I felt good on my line, then suddenly I was on my hip. Once I got back into the race, I took a lot of risks and I was fine to the finish.”
With the final six races on tap — two downhills, two super Gs, a giant slalom and another slalom — Miller holds a narrow lead with 1,084 points to Maier’s 1,076 and Raich’s 999.
Miller admitted the pressure is on as the circuit heads to the 1994 Olympic downhill course at Kvitfjell, Norway, for a downhill and super G.
“Those hills are great, but I haven’t done well there in past,” Miller said. “But I’ve made significant changes in my equipment and I’m hoping that will help me in Norway. I have confidence. I’ve been skiing well all year and the last (speed) races have been really coming together for me.”
>> Austrians remain cautiously optimistic
While Bode Miller is trying to become the first American since Phil Mahre in 1983 to win the overall World Cup title, Hermann Maier isn’t going down without a fight.
The three-time World Cup champion keeps putting the pressure on Miller by insisting he’s not trying to win his fourth title. But the big Austrian wants to cap his comeback from almost losing a leg in a motorcycle crash with a fourth trophy.
With four speed events in the six remaining races, Maier and two-time defending champion Stephan Eberharter stand to gain the most.
“There are several speed races left, so we’ll have to see what happens,” Maier said. “It will be a bitter battle and I think it will be played out until the very end.”
Eberharter missed Saturday’s giant slalom with a back injury but was expecting to be fit for Kvitfjell. Raich, meanwhile, skied poorly over the weekend, costing the gate specialist his best chance to gain ground against his rivals.
>> Women’s race not over yet
Anja Paerson was surprisingly missing from Sunday’s podium at Levi, Finland, missing her chance to widen her overall lead on her lone remaining rival, Austrian Renate Goetschl.
Paerson, who leads Goetschl by 173 points, is trying to become the first Swedish woman to win the globe since Pernilla Wiberg in 1997. After dominating slalom all season, Paerson finished fourth Saturday and missed a gate Sunday.
With a break this weekend and only the World Cup finals left, Paerson left the door open for Goetschl. While the ball is in Paerson’s court, Goetschl still has a chance if she wins both speed events and Paerson fumbles in the gates.
Goetschl tried her luck in the Levi slaloms but failed to qualify for either second run while Paerson has been skiing with great success this season in the speed events.
>> IOC takes final action in SLC doping scandal
The International Olympic Committee finalized action late last week in the doping cases against Johann Muehlegg and Olga Danilova and officially stripped three gold medals after they failed drug tests at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.
The decisions were formally implemented by the IOC board on the second day of its two-day meeting in Athens last week.
Spain’s Muehlegg, who had previously been stripped of one of three gold medals, loses the other two. Russian Danilova forfeits a gold and a silver.
Both contested the verdict on the grounds that the drug-testing methods employed at the Games were unreliable. Each failed tests for darbepoetin, a blood booster.
During the Games, the IOC disqualified the skiers only from the two races where they had positive tests. The pair was allowed to keep medals from earlier events because they had passed drug tests after those races.
But the Court of Arbitration for Sport, acting on appeals by Norway and Canada, ruled in December that the skiers should be stripped of all their medals and results.
>> Winds cancel jump
Strong winds forced organizers to ditch a World Cup ski jump at the Utah Olympic Park on Sunday. Officials waited two hours before calling off the K120 jumping event, which won’t be rescheduled.
“There was no possibility for us to jump (Sunday),” said Walter Hofer, World Cup ski jumping director for the International Ski Federation.
Japan’s Noriaki Kasai won Saturday’s jump.
About the Author: Pete Rugh
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