International Roundup: Rahlves-Hall fallout, Obermoser injured, Girardelli speaks

International Roundup: Rahlves-Hall fallout, Obermoser injured, Girardelli speaksThere were three North Americans in the top three spots in the training run for the women’s downhill at Val d’Isere, coming up this weekend. Bryna McCarty of Vermont was the fastest by two tenths over Canada’s Emily Brydon. Lindsey Kildow, the 2004 Sprint/Ski Racing Junior of the Year and a winner of one World Cup downhill already this season, tied for third. Meanwhile the men’s World Cup is in Val Gardena, where Antoine Deneriaz of France won the first training run Wednesday, and Norbert Holzknecht of Austria won today.

Tell us what you really think…

As everyone predicted, including Daron Rahlves himself, the head-turning statements that Rahlves made about Tanner Hall at skiracing.com’s Insiders section and elsewhere have generated a blizzard of controversy. A lot of emotional letters have been posted at FREESKIER magazine’s web forum, but we’re interested in seeing what people have to say too, so if you have an opinion, e-mail it to us at webeditor@insideinc.com. We may publish your comments, so include your name and hometown. One rule: put ‘Daron and Tanner’ in the subject line of your e-mail, so that we can process the replies.

Actually, if you look at the numbers…

In that FREESKIER forum, one post by someone named “Big_Mike” reads, “As much as racers try to deny it, the facts speak for themselves: racing is declining in popularity. It would not surprise me if the very statistics that [John] Meyer [of the Denver Post] cites regarding the increase in USSA membership are due to increased interest in snowboarding and freestyle programs.” In fact, USSA’s alpine youth program shows a four-year growth rate of 40 percent. Snowboarding took a big drop in membership last year. Furthermore, NASTAR’s 12-and-under category is up over 30 percent in the last three years. The Bode Miller phenomenon is evident in record sales of Briko helmets, as well.

Obermoser out with knee injury

Brigitte Obermoser will not be racing at Val d’Isere, or any other upcoming race, apparently. A native of Altenmarkt, Austria home of Atomic and last week’s World Cup she injured her knee there last week. An examination of her right knee revealed a tear of the ACL, damage to the MCL and ‘separation (without injury) of the meniscus’ according to a team press release. News reports out of Austria indicated that she may opt for some treatment other than surgery.

Marc Girardelli and Bode Miller: Two’s company

Since the beginning of this week, a lot of people have been talking about Marc Girardelli, the great Austrian skier who raced for Luxembourg for most of his career after a falling-out with Austrian officials. Girardelli’s name has been in the air because on Monday night, Bode Miller joined him in the small club now just the two of them of men who have won in four World Cup disciplines in one year. Girardelli spoke to the French sports newspaper L’Equipe earlier this week. ‘He has class. I’m proud to have my name associated to his,” the legendary Girardelli told French newspaper L’Equipe. “What he’s done doesn’t surprise me… He has more stability and consistency in his skiing. He has a huge amount of confidence…He’s physically very slim, proof that musclemen with thunder thighs are no longer in vogue, that it’s no longer the quantity of muscle that matters. You no longer need to look like a hammer thrower.”

Mike Janyk of Canada is the man…

Because of Bode Miller’s history-making there, there were a lot of outstanding performances that got underplayed in this website’s coverage of the Monday night’s slalom at Sestriere, Italy. Silvan Zurbriggen’s second-place finish was the first men’s podium that team has had all year, and Tom Rothrock’s sixth-place was a career-best. Click here to read quotes from them. But credit is certainly due to Michael Janyk of Canada, who blazed the second run there on the 2006 Winter Olympic course, ultimately going from 53rd to 16th on the day, scoring his first World Cup points. Janyk also killed it in a Europa Cup today in Obereggen, Austria. That Europa Cup race was won by Andre Myhrer, who came out of the back of the pack to finish fifth at the World Cup slalom in Beaver Creek early this month. Ted Ligety the 2004 Sprint/Ski Racing Junior of the Year was second in a first seed full of World Cup skiers.

In other news…

North Americans took the top three spots in the first training run for the women’s downhill at

The Guardian ran a story earlier this week summing up succinctly the problems that Turin has faced up until now in it’s preparation to host the 2006 Winter Olympics…Early this week a website associated with Croatian ski racing superstar Janica Kostelic was hacked, and her image momentarily substituted with a picture of a Serbian fascist leader (click here for more).… …Also in the Denver Post, Bode Miller says — as he said all through November — that the all the attention is getting to him (the team has just yesterday hired someone to help regulate media requests)…A contrarian Denver Post story says that all of the success the U.S. men’s alpine team had in Beaver Creek is for naught, because alpine racing only appeals to the upper crust… .Jan Hudec of Canada underwent a successful surgery earlier this week, after injuring the same knee he blew out last year in a fall at Beaver Creek. Hudec is a promising up-and-coming downhiller whose family escaped from Communist east Europe when he was young….Franco Cavegn, the 33-year-old skier from Switzerland, is taking three weeks off because of inflammation in his right knee.