Gagnon wins again, Lapanja top American in sixth
GEORGETOWN, Colo. — For the second day in a row, Canada’s Marie-Michele Gagnon stole the show at the Loveland NorAm tech series, proving she is a serious World Cup contender in both GS and slalom. In the opening slalom race of the series, Gagnon extended her first run lead to take the win by 0.38 of a second over runner-up Michaela Kirchgasser of Austria. Kirchgasser’s teammate Carmen Thalmann rounded out the podium in third.
Gagnon’s second run was not flawless, and she nearly skied out on the top pitch.
“I watched Kirchgasser go, and I was like, ‘Oh shoot, that was good,’ and I got nervous a little bit and went too straight at the first couple of gates, but was able to snap it back into line and the right tempo,” said Gagnon about her early recovery. “It was a fight. It’s not a World Cup, not the same kind of setup with slippers, so it’s definitely difficult,” noted Gagnon who started bib 19.
Under continual snowfall it was a race of attrition as only 31 of the 69 athletes on the start list managed to complete both courses, and all 37 skiers who completed first run qualified for the second. Still, the course crews at Loveland managed to pull off the race despite receiving more than a foot of new snow in the 24 hours preceding the event. As skiers pushed through to a solid surface below, the decision was made that the second run course set would only be a redress of the first.
Double NCAA title winner Kristine Haugen of the University of Denver, who missed the majority of summer training after having shoulder surgery in July, failed to finish the previous two races but managed to produce a top-5 result on the day.
As a belated birthday present, U.S. Ski Team development group athlete Lila Lapanja scored a career best result (18.46 points), finishing as the top American in sixth among the World Cup stars. Independent skier Megan McJames laid down a blazing first run and sat in striking distance in fourth, but she fell back to eighth after the second run, while Canadian national team member Madison Irwin, who returned this season following a back injury, showed great promise by powering to seventh from bib 26.
There has been a great deal of skepticism surrounding the U.S. women’s technical team, which aside from Mikaela Shiffrin has failed to perform up to expectations on the World Cup, but Lapanja’s result provided a ray of hope for the future.
“Training has been going so well lately and I wanted to bring that to a race finally, the fact that I was able to do that feels incredible,” said Lapanja, who has her eyes set on a World Cup start in the not so distant future. “My parents and my coach, they’ve been telling me all prep season to believe I belong with the World Cup girls. If I take that mentality into races too, I’m naturally going to be skiing faster and taking it down the hill more to keep up with them.”
Westminster College’s Anna Goodman, who was hoping to use her World Cup slalom starts this season as a launchpad to the Sochi Olympics, did not race because she injured her knee while training the previous day at Copper Mountain. She later confirmed via Facebook that she suffered a torn ACL and medial meniscus and will not be able to compete this year.
Once the ladies were finished on the hill, the boys took over for the FIS National Junior Races that have followed each NorAm at Loveland so far this season. Despite the snowfall, the hill crew was able to pull off two successful races in a single day.
Results
PL BIB CODE COMPETITOR----------------- NAT TIME TIME TOTAL RACE Nr SURNAME NAME 1stRUN 2ndRUN TIME POINTS 1 19 105269 GAGNON, Marie-Michele CAN 49.46 50.08 1`39.54 0.00 2 20 55759 KIRCHGASSER, Michaela AUT 49.56 50.36 1`39.92 2.37 3 21 55977 THALMANN, Carmen AUT 49.61 50.47 1`40.08 3.36 4 23 515997 FEIERABEND, Denise SUI 50.95 50.32 1`41.27 10.78 5 5 425921 HAUGEN, Kristine Gjelsten NOR 50.39 50.94 1`41.33 11.15 6 4 539927 LAPANJA, Lila USA 50.72 50.82 1`41.54 12.46 7 26 107044 IRWIN, Madison CAN 50.74 50.92 1`41.66 13.20 8 1 538284 MCJAMES, Megan USA 50.21 51.66 1`41.87 14.51 9 25 306249 HASEGAWA, Emi JPN 51.09 51.19 1`42.28 17.07 10 13 537772 STIEGLER, Resi USA 51.29 51.03 1`42.32 17.32 11 3 105615 ROUTHIER, Eve CAN 50.60 52.04 1`42.64 19.31 12 27 55898 BREM, Eva-Maria AUT 50.78 51.93 1`42.71 19.74 13 32 425916 FAUSA, Chloe Margrethe NOR 51.75 51.81 1`43.56 25.04 14 24 537792 DUKE, Hailey USA 51.74 52.12 1`43.86 26.91 15 9 385041 NOVOSELIC, Sofija CRO 52.18 52.07 1`44.25 29.34 16 10 539678 PETERSON, Foreste USA 51.75 52.80 1`44.55 31.21 17 40 385093 TRSINSKI, Sasa CRO 52.71 52.01 1`44.72 32.26 18 16 107532 TOMMY, Mikaela CAN 52.43 52.34 1`44.77 32.58 19 43 385092 KOMSIC, Andrea CRO 53.18 52.84 1`46.02 40.36 20 37 35089 SIMARI BIRKNER, Macarena ARG 53.50 52.86 1`46.36 42.48 21 8 107415 MOORE, Kelly CAN 53.51 53.33 1`46.84 45.47 22 45 539109 DELANEY, Devin USA 53.98 53.83 1`47.81 51.51 23 31 35131 GASTALDI, Nicol ARG 54.62 53.84 1`48.46 55.56 24 65 516407 KASPER, Vanessa SUI 54.30 54.93 1`49.23 60.36 25 41 45216 CHRYSTAL, Lavinia AUS 55.07 55.10 1`50.17 66.21 26 48 107217 KNOWLES, Natalie CAN 56.10 54.52 1`50.62 69.01 27 44 45267 BAMFORD, Emily AUS 56.11 55.26 1`51.37 73.68 28 47 107590 BOULANGER, Elyse CAN 58.37 54.23 1`52.60 81.35 29 35 35156 BANCORA, Salome ARG 56.42 56.46 1`52.88 83.09 30 63 107522 DENIS, Darquise CAN 57.36 56.32 1`53.68 88.07 31 64 107163 RYTZ, Celine CAN 57.08 57.90 1`54.98 96.17