Golden Fenninger flies down shortened super G

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. – Swirling winds, overnight snow, and a lowered start position played some role but appeared to have little effect on the outcome of the opening event of the 2015 World Championships as three of the heavy favorites coming into the day filled the podium. Anna Fenninger, the 2014 Olympic super G champion, added to her growing list of hardware, stealing the super G win away from Tina Maze and Lindsey Vonn.

Overnight snow and strong winds forced race organizers to push back the starting time of the race for the second day in a row. Due to extreme winds, the course was lowered to the reserved start, effectively eliminating a steep pitch where athletes typically generate early speed before heading into the sweeping, technical turns.

The new start did not allow the racers to bring as much speed into the steep, turny section and several racers appeared challenged to find their rhythm from turn-to-turn. Fenninger started last of the top seven skiers in the world with bib 22 and was not among those who struggled. She built a huge lead in the first 15 seconds and used her strong giant slalom skills to ski cleanly and aggressively, and gained almost three-tenths of an advantage over then-leader Maze. She kept her aggressive clean skiing going through the middle section and worked the rolls to carry her speed through to the finish, barely squeaking out the win by 0.03 seconds over Maze.

“You can always be better, but today was a big day. It was in the morning I knew that I had bib 22 and if I come to the finish and the green light is on, it’s what I dreamed about. And that it was true,” Fenninger said. “It was amazing. It was an amazing emotion and I cannot say what that means, it’s so big.”

The win is the second World Championship gold medal for Fenninger, after she won the combined in Garmisch in 2011. She struggled with the pressure of the Schladming World Championships with a string a DNFs, but was able to salvage herself with a bronze in the GS.

“I had not that much pressure today, not like two years ago in Schladming or with some races,” admitted Fenninger. “I was pretty cool in the morning and I knew that I could win, because I have, I think, six second-place (finishes) in the World Cup now and it was always very close. … Four years ago it was such a big surprise to me that I won, I never won a race before … I was sure (today) that I have all the skills to win, but you have to do it at this moment when you are on the stage and these two minutes are important … so my focus was just on my two minutes and it worked.”

Vonn, running bib 17 almost two years to the day that a crash in the World Championship super G took her out of competition for the better part of two years, gave the hometown fans a huge boost and reason to cheer when she came down with the lead. After a slow start out of the gate, she gained time on each interval. She looked passive out of the start and had a hard time finding the flow of the course but skied the final steep section onto the flat better than anyone. Her strong gliding skills allowed her to continue to gain speed over the final interval, and she came through the finish to the loudest cheers of the day after taking the lead by 0.11 seconds over Austrian Cornelia Huetter, who ultimately ended up fourth.

“I was a little bit nervous, but I felt like I had it under control. I maybe was a little bit stiff in the first couple gates, maybe a little bit too round, but that’s nitpicking. I thought I skied well. I was pretty clean. I did my best,” acknowledged Vonn. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes luck’s on your side. I don’t think it was quite on the side of the hundredths today.”

Maze, running immediately after Vonn, silenced the crowd with her characteristically precise skiing to take the lead that many believed would hold up as the fastest run of the day. Maze, the current overall leader and defending super G World Champion heading into the day, has won a race in every event this season — except super G. She almost had her first victory but was unable to match the technical skiing of Fenninger and landed on the wrong side of the clock, just a mere three-hundredths from the win.

“It always takes good skiing in each discipline, it’s the hardest part with these changes from one discipline to another, to get the right timing to be fast in slalom, to be smart in downhill, and to not put too much pressure on the skis and to be smooth in super G,” said Maze of her complicated schedule. “For me it was really challenging from that point of view today to get the right timing. It just takes a lot of training, a lot of work, a lot of experience.”

Even with the lowered start, many athletes noted feeling quite a breeze. Vonn, in particular, felt that the wind was strong during her run and could have easily cost her the 0.15 seconds she needed to move from bronze to gold, but several other athletes echoed her statements, including silver medalist Maze.

“I just wish that the weather was a little bit better. I definitely had a pretty strong headwind right out of the starting gate and the first couple gates. I was already three-tenths out in the first 20 seconds. It’s a little bit hard to make up that time, but I fought my way down,” said Vonn. “You could pick any number of gates on the top section and also that bottom left-footed gate where the couple gusts cost me more than 0.15, but at the same time Anna skied incredibly well and I’m very proud to be on the podium with those two.”

The worst wind of the day appeared to strike during Julia Mancuso’s run, but she wrote it off as an excuse for her ninth-place result and appeared to be pleased with her day.

“I definitely had some issues during my run. I had a hard time staying on-line, but I felt good about my skiing and my run. I wasn’t ever thinking. ‘I wished I could have done something different.’ There were unfortunate mistakes, but that happens in ski racing. I was especially happy to make it to the finish line with such an awesome crowd. Seeing everyone here, it’s been really great,” said Mancuso. “There was some wind and it was hard to see, but it’s more that everything just gets rushed when you have wind. It’s hard to stick to your original plan. It wasn’t as bad as in the downhill, so I don’t think it was necessarily affecting the times as much but it just affects concentration a little bit.”

The remaining two Americans in the race, Stacey Cook and Laurenne Ross both skied solid to finish 13th and 15th, respectively. Canadian youngster, Valerie Grenier, racing in her first World Championships a week after the first World Cup points of her career, finished 19th.

“I was a little nervous because it’s a big event, but I was looking forward to it because it’s more experience for me,” said Grenier. “It’s my first World Champs, so I’m not too nervous about it – I’m not taking it too seriously, I guess. I just want to have fun and get better.”

At the end of the day, no one could argue that the best skier on the mountain didn’t win the race.

The scheduled downhill training run for Wednesday has been canceled due to expected overnight snowfall. The women’s events continue with a downhill training run on Thursday and race on Friday.

See more photos from this race here.

Vail Beaver Creek 2015 Women’s Super G press conference from Ski Racing on Vimeo.

The Scoop

By Hank McKee

1. Fenninger, Head/Head/Head
2. Maze, Stoeckli/Lange/Atomic
3. Vonn, Head/Head/Head
4. Huetter, Volkl/Tecnica/Marker
5. Rebensburg, Stoeckli/Lange/Atomic
6. Weirather, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
7. Gut, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
8. Kling, Head/Head/Head
9. Mancuso, Head/Head/Head
10. Curtoni, Head/Head/Head

World Championship women’s super G, Beaver Creek, Feb. 3, 2015:

• It is the opening race of the 2015 FIS Alpine World Championships. It is the 26^th World Championship race held at Vail or Beaver Creek … the 30^th to be held in the United States (world title medals were awarded for combined based on Olympic races in 1980 and 1960). … It is the 29^th World Championship super G, the first held in 1987 at Crans Montana, Switzerland. … Tina Maze is the defending champion. … Lindsey Vonn leads the World Cup SG standings. … Wind forces a delayed and lowered start.
• It is the second World Championships gold and third medal for Anna Fenninger who won the Garmisch combined in 2011 and earned bronze in GS at Schladming in 2013. … It is her second win of the season after the GS win at Soelden in October.
• Winning margin is .03 of a second. … The top five finishers are within the same second … top 14 within two seconds. … It is the ninth Austrian SG World title.
• It is the seventh World Championship medal for Tina Maze and her fifth silver medal. .. It is her second medal in super G having won at Schladming in 2013.
• It is the sixth World Championship medal for Lindsey Vonn … and her first bronze. … It is her third medal in super G, having won gold at Val d’Isere in 2009 and earning silver at Are in 2007. … She now owns more World Championship medals than any other American.
• Julia Mancuso matches her 15^th best World Championship finish, her fifth best in super G. … It is the third best career World Championship placing for Stacey Cook and her best finish in a championship super G. … It is the sixth World Championship result for Laurenne Ross. … Her third best placing. … It is the first career World Championship finish for Valerie Grenier. … It is the third Championship result for Larisa Yurkiw, her second best SG finish.
• Austria leads the medal count with one gold. … The Slovenes have one silver and the U.S. one bronze.

Results