World Cup Rewind: Women test La Molina

The women’s race circuit says adios to La Molina, Spain, where the resort hosted its inaugural World Cup events last weekend in the form of giant slalom and slalom races. Most notable in the action was German all-around racer Maria Riesch, who, with a two-run combined time of 1 minute, 52.98 seconds, notched her first slalom victory in a long four years, beating second-place finisher Lindsey Vonn (1:54.46) by nearly a second and a half. Though she was disqualified in Saturday’s GS after she skied off-course in the first run, Vonn was pleased to share the slalom podium with her German pal.

Today the women’s race circuit says adios to La Molina, Spain, where the resort hosted its inaugural World Cup events last weekend in the form of giant slalom and slalom races. Most notable in the action was German all-around racer Maria Riesch, who, with a two-run combined time of 1 minute, 52.98 seconds, notched her first slalom victory in four years, beating second-place finisher Lindsay Vonn (1:54.46) by nearly a second and a half. Though she was disqualified in Saturday’s GS after she skied off-course in the first run, Vonn was pleased to share the slalom podium with her German pal.

“Maria won and it’s even more beautiful than if I had won myself,” she told Reuters Canada.  After her slalom victory in Levi, Finland, this October, Vonn’s second place in La Molina earned her the World Cup slalom leader’s bib and she was able to reclaim the World Cup overall lead from Finland’s Tanja Poutiainen, between whom the bib has traveled back and forth over the last few weeks. Poutiainen, who now holds the GS leader’s bib, ripped through what she said was a difficult GS course for the win Saturday, edging Italian racer Manuela Moelgg by just .02 seconds with her two-run finish time of 2:16.76, then went on to finish sixth in Sunday’s slalom. Austrians rounded out the podium in both races – Nicole Hosp (2:17.41) took third in Saturday’s GS and teammate Kathrin Zettel (1:55.34) finished behind Vonn in the slalom.

While 2006 Olympic gold medalist Julia Mancuso continues to fight her way back to the front of the pack, the U.S. racer took 18th in the GS and 26th in slalom behind teammate Sarah Schleper, who finished 25th.

“This is a super tough hill,” U.S. Women’s head coach Jim Tracy said of La Molina. “It’s got about 12 to 13 gates in the steeps and it’s icy with new snow on the edges. We’ve had challenging courses and weather conditions for almost every race now and this is just another one.”

Going into this weekend’s super-combined, super G and downhill races in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Vonn holds the World Cup lead in DH while Italian Nadia Fanchini looks to maintain the SG lead.

The U.S. women’s A Team will join teammates Stacey Cook and Kaylin Richardson in the Swiss resort this week. The two spent last weekend getting some extra practice and familiarity with the race hill, competing in Europa Cup SG and super combined races, in which Cook finished 12^th in the SG (followed by veteran U.S. teammate Caroline Lalive, who took 13^th) and 11^th in combined while Richardson put down a 14^th-place finish in combined.

Look out, though. The Spanish slalom victory has Riesch (who has five career World Cup podiums in downhill, including a bronze a few weeks ago in Lake Louise, seven in SG and four in combined) feeling pretty good about taking her newly recovered technical prowess to the faster races.

She told Reuters “I now cannot wait to show what I’m capable of in the speed events and in super-combined.”