Alpine nationals: Worn-out Weibrecht eyes break

By Published On: April 1st, 2007Comments Off on Alpine nationals: Worn-out Weibrecht eyes break

Andrew Weibrecht will trade skiing for studying — at least for a little while this spring — while the reigning NorAm overall champ recovers from a long season that will end early next week after the 2007 U.S. Alpine Championships.
ALYESKA RESORT, Alaska — Andrew Weibrecht will trade skiing for studying — at least for a little while this spring — while the reigning NorAm overall champ recovers from a long season that will end early next week after the 2007 U.S. Alpine Championships.
    Weibrecht finished sixth in Saturday’s super G, nearly a second behind winner Bode Miller but an improvement on his 17th-place result in Friday’s national championship downhill. Weibrecht will race in the slalom on Sunday and the GS on Tuesday before shifting his focus to school. He’s set to head east next week to Dartmouth College for a few spring classes, a time when he’ll leave his Rossignols hanging on the wall.     
    “I’ll be off basically for two months just doing [school]. I probably won’t go to any camps in the spring because school’s pretty tough and I can’t really afford to miss it,” Weibrecht said. “Then I’ll just start off again in June and take it from there, get everything rolling again.”
     Weibrecht certainly had it rolling on the NorAm circuit this season as he edged teammate Erik Fisher for the overall crown, finished second in the super G standings and third in the downhill.
    The finishes were satisfying, Weibrecht said, but that success came with a price. He admitted that his body is “breaking down a little bit right now” after a long season of racing NorAms, Europa Cup races and a handful of World Cup starts. Weibrecht started 14 races in March alone.
    “This year I was physically stronger, in better shape than I have been in past years,” he said. “[But] this time of the year my knees are starting to hurt, my back’s hurting so it’s just a lot of wear and tear.”
    “The NorAms were really positive this year,” he added. “I did well, I was really happy. I won a couple of races and got two World Cup spots for next year and won the overall as a bonus, which was cool.”
    As for next season’s goals?
“I don’t know a whole lot,” he said. “I’m going to train this summer, see how it goes. I’ll obviously be doing a couple of more World Cups next year, so hopefully I start getting in there. I’ve been in the 30s a couple of times in World Cups this year, so I’d like to make that extra little move and get up in the points, take it from there.”
    As for Saturday’s result, Weibrecht said he was a little frustrated with the race because of the 10:30 a.m. local starting time. The entire course was in the shade, making visibility difficult and terrain tough to judge, especially in a super G with no training run.
“It’s tough,” he said. “You’d think with 14 hours of sunlight a day we could run a little later, but …”

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About the Author: Pete Rugh