World Cup Rewind: Men's speed team unveiled

The U.S. men’s speed team is healthy for the first time in years. At Val Gardena, on the Saslong course, the guys clearly demonstrated what they’ve known for a long time: they are fast and they are talented.

With the season’s first downhill, at Lake Louise, a wind-induced crap-shoot, and the second, at Beaver Creek, held on an amazingly unforgiving course, the team had not had much opportunity to show their stuff. The Saslong provided opportunity.

Though Val Gardena offers up plenty of air-time, it is a straight forward course, not overly technical and relatively easy to pick out a line on. The U.S. guys, currently a group of seven including Bode Miller, had some confidence. Miller, of course, is the defending World Cup Champ, and has never been short on confidence. But the bulk of the remaining six racers had scored some of their best results at Val Gardena.The U.S. men’s speed team is healthy for the first time in years. At Val Gardena, on the Saslong course, the guys clearly demonstrated what they’ve known for a long time: they are fast and they are talented.

With the season’s first downhill, at Lake Louise, a wind-induced crap-shoot, and the second, at Beaver Creek, held on an amazingly unforgiving course, the team had not had much opportunity to show their stuff. The Saslong provided opportunity.

Though Val Gardena offers up plenty of air-time, it is a straight forward course, not overly technical and relatively easy to pick out a line on. The U.S. guys, currently a group of seven including Bode Miller, had some confidence. Miller, of course, is the defending World Cup Champ, and has never been short on confidence. But the bulk of the remaining six racers had scored some of their best results at Val Gardena.

Two of Scotty Macartney’s best three finishes came there. Steven Nyman’s only win came there. Marco Sullivan had one of his top results there. Both Erik Fisher and TJ Lanning were coming off some of their first ever scoring results and Andrew Weibrecht, well, he’s just always ready to go.

It’s not an old team, it’s not a young team. The average age is 27 with Miller and Macartney getting old guy status at 31, Sullivan at 29, Nyman 27 and three younger and presumably hungry men, Fisher and Lanning at 24 and Weibrecht 23. They are mature, but not too mature. Experienced and at the prime of life, this squad relished this opportunity.

And, training runs had gone pretty well, too. Lanning third, Miller sixth, Sullivan 11th and Macartney 14th in the first. Sullivan third, Lanning fifth, Miller eighth and Nyman 17th in the second. The super G, held Friday, had been a moderate showing with a strong result from Sullivan (fifth), Lanning 16th, Miller 17th and Fisher putting on the game day face for 20th. The race they wanted was the downhill.

The Val Gardena downhill start was moved down the hill because of a combination of wind, fog and low visibility. By the time that fog lifted about the only blemish on the result sheet was Austrian Michael Walchhofer at the top of the finish order. Add his teammate Klaus Kroell in sixth and Swiss Ambrosi Hoffmann in eighth and you have the sum of the European effort. North Americans held the other seven places in the top 10, with Canada’s four-man team producing two of them.

Bode Miller got second. It was his first DH podium at Val Gardena in a career that has produced them at Lake Louise, Beaver Creek, Wengen, Kitzbuehel, Garmisch, Lenzerheide, Are, Kvitfjell and Bormio. It can’t be labeled a surprise, but it was far from a given.

Sullivan got fourth, and now wants more. “To be in the top five twice in two days is really cool,” Sullivan said. “I feel like I’m skiing really solid right now and I just need that one more piece of the puzzle to really find the intensity to go for the win. But, I’ve been skiing really strong and I’m happy. I’m in a good place.”

Erik Fisher, not even assured a place on this team at the beginning of the season, came from the 52nd start hole to place seventh in what head coach Sasha Rearick called, “…the best performance of the day in terms of going out and stepping it up a level.”

“At the beginning of the year I was struggling,” said Fisher, “so I needed a little help with my confidence. Now I know I can compete with these guys. Now it’s game on.”

Nyman, the winner at Val Gardena in December 2006, was ninth, his sixth downhill top ten result.

TJ Lanning, the first of the Americans to start on the day, wound up tenth as his teammates and the Canadians continued to push him down the finish order all day long.
“My starting number today wasn’t the most advantageous in terms of all the snow on the course,” Lanning said. “but I skied every part of the course as well as I could have. To have three downhills and three top 15s is great. Consistency is what I have lacked in the past and this is great because you can’t learn much about World Cup racing without consistency.”

Macartney, in 15th, adds yet another dimension. It was his fifth best career DH result. And Weibrecht rolled into the points in 28th, just the third score of his short World Cup career and first of the season.

The result will not change the approach, though it will help the confidence level. “We will continue to focus on the same stuff,” said coach Rearick. “We’ll concentrate on the boy’s health and on things that make us fast.”

With another Italian downhill stop, Bormio, next on tap that’s a good idea. Outside of Miller, who won at Bormio last season, at the 2005 World Championships, and had the infamous one ski run the length of 12,000 foot course, the team has had little success on the Stelvio. All bets, however, are now off. These guys are ready to keep it rolling.

The pre-Christmas Italian swing also included the annual Alta Badia GS and a slalom added to the scheduled from Val d’Isere. Conditions warmed throughout the day during the GS and the soft heavy snow made it difficult for late starters to make up any ground. The win went to Daniel Albrecht – the first man of the season to win two GS’s – with Ivica Kostelic in second.

The defending GS champion, Ted Ligety showed tenacity in hanging in for fourth place and stay within four points of Albrecht for the GS standings lead.

The slalom went to Kostelic. It was just the second slalom of the season with six scheduled between Jan 6 and Feb 1, making it more of a set-up race than it might appear on the surface. Jean-Baptiste Grange, with a remarkable second run, finished second on the day and Benni Raich third. Kostelic and Grange lead the slalom standings while Raich made major inroads in toppling Aksel Svindal off the top of the overall standings. Both Raich – second to Svindal by 37 points – and Grange – third, another 27 back – appear determined to control the overall standings without the benefit of downhill points.