World Cup Rewind: Wax on, wax off

They “missed the wax.”
    We hear the phrase with some regularity, though it may be a bit of a misnomer. There’s a whole lot more to it than some paraffin and a hot iron.

Editor's Note: Hank McKee will play "Monday Morning Quarterback" each Monday during the ski season, recapping the World Cup weekend that was, the studs and duds, what happened and why, and the ramifications for the chase for the crystal globes. As the season progresses, perhaps "Professor McKee" will dish out some A's and D's as performances warrant. Enjoy skiracing.com's second installment of World Cup Rewind.

THEY "MISSED THE WAX."
    We hear the phrase with some regularity, though it may be a bit of a misnomer. There’s a whole lot more to it than some paraffin and a hot iron.
    Whatever the details, a cold front which moved through Lake Louise seems to have changed everything for the men’s downhill. The Austrians had dialed in the men’s Olympic downhill run in training runs, pushing three and then five into the top 10 and five in the top five of the final trainer. Then they got smoked in the race proper by an old man with a broken rib and a couple of young bucks. In Austrian papers there was speculation about Atomic skis not running in the race. Not making any judgment here, I’m just sayin’. I’m also sayin’ the snow in Alberta is decidedly different than that of the European Alps. And, we noticed, Atomic redeemed pretty well with the top six placings in the super G.
    Oh, those Canadians. Not only does Manuel Osborne-Paradis take the first podium at Lake Louise for the Canadians in downhill, the following day John Kucera does him one better, icing the super G win in front of the hometown crowd and his landlords, Jan and Zedena Kucera, his parents (I hope I got that spelling right, John, the connection wasn’t that clear). He was nearly bewildered by the win. He knew he was good, knew he had a shot, but he definitely hadn’t thought about what to do about the trappings which go along with winning. You know, like the prize money, the car or truck from GMC, the whole press conference thing. What comes across is just a kid with a job to do … and he was more anxious to get on to the next stop than dealing with media. To my mind, that’s a good thing. Too much media attention isn’t good for anybody. Look at T.O. Or Madonna.
    The newest Madonna for the Austrians is Marlies Schild who has now won the first two slaloms of the season. … the first by eight-tenths, the second by eight-tenths. In both cases, third place was more than a second back. She has officially established the pecking order in women’s slalom.
    And if Schild is close to a religious icon in Austria, imagine the home country excitement for Kathrin Zettel. Check out the video clip from the finish line elsewhere on these pages. What a sweetie. A very fast sweetie who dusted the GS field and has yet to finish worse than fifth. She is just 20.
    Isn’t it interesting that there’s a 20-year-old winning, and the same weekend Marco Buechel sets the record in the other direction, winning at 35 years, 20 days. And he’s a punk kid compared to Patrik Jaerbyn scoring a podium at 37 years, seven months and 20 days. It’s like the big bang of the evolution of ski racing, exploding in both directions.
    It is, by the way, a real battle at the top of the women’s standings. With Anja Paerson skiing back into shape after summer surgery and Janica Kostelic on sabbatical, someone had to step forward. Nicole Hosp may not yet have a win, but she’s ahead of everyone who has. Zettel is five points back of that and Schild another five back. And this week we start to add downhillers to the mix.
    Attack from the Back of the Pack awards for the week go to Stephan Keppler, Werner Heel and Kucera for the downhill, 42nd to 8th, 43rd to 12th and 51st to 14th, respectively in the men’s DH. To Aurelie Santon (37th to 14th) and our own Resi Stiegler (62nd to 20th) in GS. Andrej Jerman (56th to 23rd) in super G and Brigitte Acton (42nd to 18th) in slalom.