Maze wins 3rd discipline of the season in Sweden

Tina Maze in the 2014 Are World Cup giant slalom. GEPA

Tina Maze has quickly established herself as the one to beat in the overall title chase this season, with her third win in as many disciplines coming today in Are, Sweden. She charged from seventh after to run one to take the win over a surprising second-place finisher, Sara Hector of Sweden, and Aspen victor Eva-Maria Brem, who finished third.

Maze skied well, but without spark on the open and fast first run set. In the second run, she came out of the start with a clear mission. She skied with aggression and, after a mistake coming over one of the tricky rolls, she turned it up a notch. From the final interval to the finish no one was able to touch her — no matter the lead at the split — and she was able to hold off the final six skiers for her first giant slalom victory of the year.

“It was nice to put out this run today with, kind of, coming up from Canada two days ago. So yeah, today I was on the ground asleep almost, but no, I’m skiing great so I’m really happy with today’s race,” said Maze of her day. “Yeah I just thought, that’s just jetlag (on her mistake), you know you make some mistakes and you have to take them, but even so I was trying to ski down fast and I made it.”

Maze now has won a race in three different disciplines after a slalom victory in Levi, Finland, and a downhill win last weekend in Lake Louise. Additionally, she has a third-place result in super G from Lake Louise, giving her a podium result in each discipline she has entered this season. While she may not be as dominant as she was in 2013 when she landed on the podium an astonishing 24 times on her way to a record-breaking season, she appears to be closer than anyone else on the circuit.

With the win, Maze moved up in a number of record books. It is her 14th victory in GS, which moves her into third all-time, tying Anita Wachter and Lise-Marie Morerod. Only Vreni Schneider and Annemarie Moser-Proell logged more. She now has 26 wins overall moving her into 12th place all-time for women.

For Hector, the result is the first podium of her career and in many ways came out of nowhere. She started off the season with her best GS result, an 11th in Soelden, and then followed that up with her second-best GS result in Aspen, in 16th.

“The conditions here are amazing so it is the same for everybody,” said Hector. “It’s been a great race. It’s nice to have my teammates around me. We have such a really great team and it is amazing to be part of it.”

Today, Hector launched herself from bib 25 to finish second on run one, leaving the crowd wondering if she could hold it together on run two. She immediately ran into trouble on the challenging steep pitch right out of the start, but was able to re-group and ski aggressively and cleanly down the remainder of the course to finish just behind Maze.

Brem, the first run leader, skied well but didn’t have quite enough left in the tank at the end of the second run. She fell short of taking a second consecutive win, but she was still more than pleased with her fourth straight podium finish in GS dating back to last season, genuinely reacting in the finish area like a winner instead of the skier who came in third.

“It’s always great to be on the podium. I tried to fully attack and I made some little mistakes but in the end I am very happy,” said Brem. “This is what you wish for, when you are training so hard. Everything works out well for me and I hope that it will continue like that this season.”

The fast and open first run set kept the times close from one through 30, which allowed for movement on the challenging second run. It also caused a tight race overall with only 0.41 seconds separating the first seven racers. Italian Federica Brignone, fresh off a third-place finish in Aspen, missed her second podium in a row by three hundredths. She was closely followed by teammate Nadia Fanchini who was an additional four hundredths back. Anna Fenninger, who won both Are races last season, missed the podium by a mere nine hundredths to finish sixth. Swedish favorite, Jessica Lindell-Vikarby, who sat in third after run one dropped back to seventh overall.

The Americans did not fare as well as they would have liked, with the only points coming from Mikaela Shiffrin in 10th. Julia Mancuso had trouble finding the rhythm of the course on run one and sat in the hot seat for a while in 30th, but held on for a shot at the second run. She ran into trouble over one of many tricky rolls and fell on her hip for the second GS race in a row. The only other American in the race, independent skier Megan McJames, did not qualify for a second run.

Shiffrin skied somewhat conservatively on the first run out of the start and by the first interval already found herself facing a significant deficit. She picked up the pace as she made her way down the course and came within striking distance heading into run two, in eighth. Second run saw more of the same from Shiffrin who skied well, but still lacked a clean, aggressive top of the turn that the podium finishers possessed. Even so, it was a serious improvement over last season’s GS results in Are, where she finished 15th and 24th in the two races held.

“I’m not exactly sure (where the time was lost). I’ll have to watch the video because that run I felt like I was attacking a lot harder and I thought that would help my time, but I ended up losing again,” admitted Shiffrin. “I’m a little bit not sure. I don’t know what exactly was wrong that run. Sometimes I feel awesome and I can trick myself into thinking that I’m skiing like a hero when I’m not. So this is one of the days when I have to look back at the video and see what I need to do better.”

The women continue their weekend series tomorrow in Are with a slalom, where Shiffrin is the defending champion.

“I’m really excited to get back into a slalom race. We’ll just have to see. It’s tough competition, and I just have to attack,” said Shiffrin of tomorrow. “I’m just trying to get that feeling back and make sure that I have everything in place so that I get in the start on race day and I’m comfortable to ski fast.”

THE SCOOP

By Hank McKee

1. Maze, Stoeckli/Lange/Atomic
2. Hector, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
3. Brem, Volkl/Fischer/Marker
4. Brignone, Rossignol/Lange/Rossignol
5. Fanchini, Dynastar/Lange/Look
6. Fenninger, Head/Head/Head
7. Lindell-Vikarby, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
8. Marmottan, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
9. Pietilae-Holmner, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
10. Shiffrin, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic

Women’s World Cup giant slalom, Are, Sweden, Dec. 12, 2014:

• It is a race relocated from Courchevel, France, due to a lack of snow and warm weather. … It is the eighth race of the women’s 35 race World Cup calendar … the third of seven giant slaloms. … It is the first race rescheduled this season. … It is the 90^th World Cup race hosted by Are, the 30^th GS. … It would have been the seventh World Cup race for Courchevel.
• It is the 26^th career World Cup win for Tina Maze … her 14^th in GS. … It is her second GS win at Are, the first coming March 14, 2009. … It is her third win of the season having also secured the first Lake Louise downhill and the Levi slalom.
• It is the first career World Cup podium for Sara Hector, her previous best a fifth in combined at Altenmarkt Jan. 12, 2014. … Her previous best at Are had been 20^th on Dec. 19, 2012 in GS.
• It is the fifth career World Cup podium for Eva-Marie Brem, all in GS. … It is her second podium at Are in this calendar year having also placed third March 6, 2014. … It is her third podium of the season, all in GS.
• It is the 10^th top ten in GS for Mikaela Shiffrin, and her third this season. … She has won twice at Are, both times in slalom. Marie-Pier Prefontaine is three places better than her only other GS result at Are.
• Brem leads the GS standings 220-166 over Shiffrin. … Fenninger is third with 162pts.
• Maze leads the World Cup overall standings 480-303 over Anna Fenninger (sixth in race). Kathrin Zettel (11^th in race) is third overall with 274pts. … Shiffrin leads Americans overall in fourth with 235pts. … Lindsey Vonn (did not race) sits sixth with 212pts.
• Austria leads the women’s Nations Cup 1515-879 over the US. … Sweden is third with 713pts. … Canada is tenth with 170pts.

RESULTS