Austria continued its domination of the World Cup events here when Michael Walchhofer overcame poor weather conditions to claim victory in the super-G on Saturday.Veteran Walchhofer, who was following up his countryman Benjamin Raich’s win on Friday, clocked 1min 20.78sec down the testing 1,770-metre-long course on the Face de Bellevarde in overcast conditions with light flurries of snow.
Early leader Ted Ligety of the United States was 0.28sec off the pace with Italian Werner Heel a further 0.47sec adrift, with only a further 10 racers within two seconds of Walchhofer’s blistering run.”It’s a great surprise,” admitted Walchhofer, the reigning Olympic downhill silver medallist who also claimed world downhill gold in 2003 and super-G silver in the 2005 worlds in Bormio.
“I made a big mistake and I knew I had to fight but I wasn’t expecting to finish first. When I saw that I was in first spot it took me a few moments to get to grips with that.”Walchhofer, whose last win on the circuit came almost one year ago in the Val Gardena downhill, added: “I have a love-hate relationship with that hill. You have to ski with guts on the course, take a chance and just go for it. No one can come down there without making a mistake.
“I got a boost from my slalom run on Friday and today I even impressed myself,” said the 34-year-old Austrian, who was enjoying his 15th World Cup victory but only his second super-G win.Ligety, whose run guaranteed him a first super-G podium, also said the Face de Bellevarde had been testing.”I’m really excited to be on the podium here,” he said. “When I came to the finish line, I was sure I was going to be about two seconds behind.
“There’s not really any place on the course you feel good so you’ve just got to fight your way down and you’re lucky if you made it to the finish line okay.”Calgary’s Manuel Osborne-Paradis, who won gold last month at Lake Louise, finished 21st, 37.92s back of the winner.Fellow Canadians Erik Guay, Robbie Dixon, Fancois Bourque and Louis-Pierre Helie did not finish their first runs.
Walchhofer’s Austrian team-mate Raich, winner of Friday’s super-combined, finished fifth behind Italian Patrick Staudacher to move within 54 points of World Cup overall leader Carlo Janka of Switzerland.Reigning world super-G champion Didier Cuche, also of Switzerland, could only manage joint ninth with American Bode Miller.It was another disappointing outing for Swiss star Janka, who again failed to live up to his triple cleansweep in Beaver Creek last weekend.
Janka, who bombed out of the slalom in Friday’s super-combined, pushed it from the top but overcooked one turn and failed to regain his line.”The light was very dark, I was too late and I went away from the slope and that was that,” lamented Janka.”It’s disappointing that it’s happened twice. I look forward to Sunday’s giant slalom and hope I can get a better result than today.”
Janka was not, unsurprisingly, the only racer who failed to complete the course, with a host of others not finishing in extremely tricky conditions.”You can’t see anything, you can’t see the contours and it’s very bumpy up there – it’s not so easy,” Janka said.Third-placed Heel added: “The conditions were terrible and you had to fight hard. Attack was the only tactic.”It’s impossible to have a clean run here given that the course is so demanding.”
