La Marseillaise will play over a World Championship podium this evening for the first time since 2001 when the late Regine Cavagnoud won the super G at St Anton. The French won the team event with a full set of heroics on a parallel GS course down the Kandahar track defeating the prohibitive favorite Austrians on a tie breaker and .28 of a second. Sweden crushed Italy 4-0 for the bronze medal.

The French squad had Taina Barioz, Thomas Fanara, Tessa Worley and Cyprien Richard working through the parallel ladder, but in the final it was Anemone Marmottan with a critical .01 margin over Austrian Michael Kirchgasser decided by a desperate stretch to the finish timer and Richards’ 25.41 second time over Philipp Schoerghofer that spelled the difference. While Austrian Romed Baumann won the last run of the day over Fanara, his time of 25.69 broke the 2-2 tie in favor of the tri-color.

“When we have skis on we need to stay focused even if (it is) something we are not sue to do,” said Richard. “For Benni – I hope it is not too bad for him.”

With Richard and Fanara the French had two members of the Adelboden GS podium on the team, but, Richard said the team event was somewhere between a GS and a slalom. “Like a GS but close between the gates.”

Fanara said he was just glad to be here. Injured a season ago, “One year ago I was in my bed looking at Olympic Games on TV. And now, in first place. I am happy to share this with all the French ski team, with the ladies and with all the coaches.”

Italy handed the U.S. an early exit from the competition but could not compare with the Swedes in the third place run off. Anja Paerson defeated Federica Brignone, Matts Olsson was faster than Giovanni Borsotti, Maria Pietilae-Holmner dispatched Johanna Schnarf and Hans Olsson got Massimiliano Blardone at the finish for a clean sweep worth bronze.

The medal is the 19th for Paerson who said “I can hardly believe this. I have been doing this for 13 years. I didn’t think my career would be this successful. I never would have believed this possible.”

Austria was struggling most of the day, surviving a first match tie breaker with Croatia after Sofia Novoselic produced the upset of the day by out speeding Marlies Schild and Benjamin Raich had exited the course in his run with Natko Zrncic-Dim. Kirchgasser and Bauman got the two points back and Bauman’s time was fastest to salvage their chance for a medal. Raich sustained an ACL injury in his non-fall exit, his availability lost for any remaining races.

“Against the Croate team I knew I had to be very fast to win,” said Kirchgasser. And in the finals her narrow loss left her looking for answers. “One hundredth is almost nothing. Maybe I was too far to the left in the start.”

Philipp Schoerghofer, Raich’s replacement, said that despite what will be viewed as a loss in Austria, the team event should prove useful in the giant slalom. “I’m not sure why they selected me (to race). The coach said I had to go, so I went. I saw the slope for the first time today and I would say they did a great job in preparing the slope. It was good to have raced on it when we have the GS on Friday.”

The U.S. squad made up of Bode Miller, Ted Ligety, Julia Mancuso and Sarah Schelper was given a bye in the first round of competition  based on nations’ cup standings but then was promptly excused in the quarter finals by Team Italy. Only Miller, the nephew of former pro parallel greats Bubba and Mike Kenney, was able to win his heat against Cristian Deville. Miller grabbed his first World Cup podium of the season in a similar parallel event  down the road in Munich in early January. 

Despite an early exit, the American athletes enjoyed themselves as they compared notes and strategized between runs while being shuttled back to the start on four-wheel ATVs and snow machines.   

“It’s a really fun event, it’s good to be with the guys,” said Mancuso who took advantage of a few more quick laps on the GS hill but fell behind Johanna Schnarf in her heat. “It’s one of those events where anything can happen so in that ways it’s cool. Winning a team event is nothing like winning an individual event but it’s still fun.”

“I think it’s a cool event, I like the format,” said Ligety, the U.S. anchor man after finishing 0.39 seconds behind Massimiliano Blardone. “I just made to really big mistakes and that is what cost me. It’s fun to watch and fun to race but our scheduling in ski racing is so tight as it is that throwing this in the middle of a championship is always hard.”

The Canadians, represented by siblings Mike and Britt Janyk, Marie-Michele Ganong and Paul Stutz were also dropped early losing to the Croatians with one tie, one win and two heat losses.

“I think it was great, you got all the teams out here and it’s a little more chilled out and relaxed but you still want to go fast and move ahead,” said Britt Janyk, who shared a tied heat with Tea Palic. “You see the other person but you really just have to focus on your course and your skiing and that is how you pull ahead.”