First half of final men's DH training in the books

It is safe to say the track for the men’s downhill got faster as the world’s best took at least half of their final training run Friday (Feb. 8) ahead of Saturday’s World Championship downhill. The bottom of the course will be tested in an added training run of the steep and technical last section on Saturday morning before the race.

The bib numbers of the four fastest finishers were 35 (Brice Roger of France – pictured), 29 (Andrej Sporn of Solvenia), 25 (Marco Sullivan of the US) and  55 (Andrew Weibrecht of the US). That doesn’t look that bad from a US point of view, but expecting the same condition changes Saturday would be a fool’s expectation.

It was the first day since the 42nd World Championships started that the weather was primarily sunny and visibility was excellent. It was also considerably colder, so the track got harder, icy basically, and therefore faster.

“It was nice to have sun,” said Sullivan, quipping, “It shed a new light, literally, on the course.” The  Planai race hill is loaded with terrain and some healthy sized jumps. “You could see where you were going to take off on the jumps and could see all the little bumps you had to absorb. Today I could sit in the drivers seat and plow through all the terrain and create speed rather than sitting on the heels.”

The two phase training run has definitely raised some concerns and criticism. Particularly because the last pitch into the finish stadium is among the trickier portions of the course.

It’s a shame we couldn’t run to the bottom,” said defending downhill champion Erik Guay. “It seems like a minor league kind of move, but it is what it is and everybody is in the same boat.”

Klaus Kroell was the fastest of the first seed skiers in sixth place with Aksel Lund Svindal in eighth and Guay 10th. Canadian Jan Hudec, the ninth starter, missed the honor of leading all Canadians by one hundredth in 11th.

It was a training run, and that needs to be kept in perspective. “I thought I skied really well,” said Steven Nyman who wound up buried in 30th. “I hit what I wanted to hit. I was on different skis, different bases, we try whatever out during the training runs and see what’s running.”

So far no one has done enough on the Planai to make themselves a prohibitive favorite. Saturday’s downhill will prove interesting.

Gepa photo

Schladming (AUT)
Training
Men’s Downhill
Feb. 8, 2013