TARVISIO, Italy – Although she has been on the podium many times, it had been more than two years since Anja Paerson won a downhill race, but that all changed on Saturday when the Swedish veteran smoked the field in Tarvisio.
Pushing her knee pain to the back of her mind, even though it stung landing jumps on the shortened Tarvisio course, Paerson won in 1 minute, 26.91 seconds, well over a second faster than everyone besides Lindsey Vonn, who secured her fourth straight World Cup downhill title with her second place finish, 0.73 seconds behind Paerson. Double world champion Elisabeth Goergl continued her streak of success to round out the podium in third, 1.17 seconds out.
A thick morning fog prevented the ladies from training on the top part of the course as scheduled before the race start, so officials had to decide once again to run the downhill from the reserve start. By the time the race began, however, the fog lifted and made way for clear skies and bright sun, making for warm snow and an extra challenge for racers on a course already famous for being better suited to gliders.
“I had a bit of luck that we didn’t ski from the top of the course, so I could stay fit for the whole run,” said Paerson, who injured her knee last weekend in Are. “Coming into the finish, it didn’t feel great after those big jumps in the middle, but I’m very happy with the win today. I’ve had a bit of a struggle this year.”
Paerson turns 30 next month and, having been racing – and winning – on the World Cup for more than 10 years, she has indicated that this season might be her last. But after winning a race for the first time in more than a year (she won last season’s super-combi in St. Moritz), it will be harder to turn her back on the sport. Saturday’s victory was the 42nd of her long Cup career.
“When you win a race, you feel positive and like everything’s going your way. But for me to keep on going, it means I need to put every hour in, every day, for a whole year,” she said. “I hope I have the motivation and strength to keep racing. Nowadays it takes a lot of effort … I have to be true to myself if I want to be up there.”
Although Paerson was happy with her downhill run, she said it was not perfect. Vonn said the same, but her one mistake was much more pronounced. Whereas Paerson was able to build most of her speed on the bottom flats, Vonn was not. The American was leading on the top part of the course, but her outside ski shuddered on the big right turn coming into the flats and she dropped a large bit of her speed. Maria Riesch, who was also almost a tenth of a second ahead, made the same mistake on the exact same part of the course and ended up sixth, 1.31 seconds off the winning time. Thus, Vonn closed the gap a little bit more between herself and her friend toward the overall World Cup title. She now trails Riesch by 136 points, with 1480 to the German’s 1616.
“I was trying to win the race today, but Anja was too fast for me,” Vonn said. “Anja had something working for her on the flats today. It was a little tough. The weather was warm and it was getting to be sticky snow. I was happy with my run and it was a decent day as far as the overall goes. I made some good points. So all in all, it was a good day.”
With 600 points over Riesch’s 457 in the downhill standings and with just one downhill race remaining at World Cup finals in Lenzerheide, Vonn, who won the super-combined title on Friday with another second-place finish, will get the downhill globe, the 11th crystal globe of her career. When asked if the downhill title is just something she expects now that she has won it the last four years, Vonn said she never dares to expect anything.
“You can never expect any titles,” she said. “Nothing is given to you. I wasn’t able to win as many times this year as last year, but I’m still in contention for the overall title. I might need a little luck, too, but anything can happen in ski racing. I’m going to be fighting until the very last race.”
It was a hey day for Head skis occupying every step of the podium in Tarvisio. Goergl said that she was riding a wave of adrenaline after following up her two world championship gold medals in downhill and super G with a podium in last weekend’s super-combi in Are. She said she was sorry to not start from the top of the downhill course in Tarvisio, but her error-free run is what put her on the podium again on Saturday.
“I was a little disappointed that we didn’t run from the top, but I respect the decision,” Goergl said. “It was a clean run. I had a good line and I was attacking. It was fun skiing here today.”
World giant slalom champion Tina Maze, who landed the first super-combined victory of her career on Friday in Tarvisio, narrowly missed another podium, finishing fourth in Saturday’s downhill. She joked that the reason was because her lucky golden retriever – Mik – stayed home after all the excitement on Friday.
“He’s at home … that’s why I’m fourth,” she said, laughing. “It was a tough day for him yesterday – really emotional for him, too. So today he stayed home.”
In all seriousness, though, Maze said on a gliding course like Tarvisio, longer skis and perfect wax were the necessary ingredients for a podium finish in the downhill.
“When I came down to the finish, I knew it wasn’t enough to be on top,” Maze said. “The other girls have longer skis for this slope. It’s just a material thing, I think. I was skiing well, but it’s not enough sometimes on this kind of slope.”
French veteran Ingrid Jacquemod tied her top result of the season in fifth Friday, 1.29 seconds back. After Riesch in sixth came the lady who drew the loudest cheers from the Italian crowd. Elena Fanchini also had one of the better races of her Cup career (besides her one win in Lake Louise in 2005), finishing seventh and 1.39 seconds out. It was also a good day for Switzerland’s Marianne Abderhalden, who took eighth, 1.65 seconds out and Canadian Britt Janyk, who was ninth, 1.74 seconds back. Julia Mancuso, who, after her Olympic silver medal last year has finished top 10 in every downhill race since with two exceptions (in which she finished 11th and 16th), was 10th, 1.84 seconds back.
Go here for video with Paerson, Vonn, Goergl and Maze.
Click here for full results.
by Shauna Farnell/farnell@fisski.com
