Lake Louise: Spaniard, Slovene stun in DH training

By Published On: November 29th, 2006Comments Off on Lake Louise: Spaniard, Slovene stun in DH training

Austrian Andrea Fischbacher held on to the lead of the second training run at Lake Louise on Wednesday, coming from just outside of the first seed, but the heads were spinning for the results of Spaniard Carolina Ruiz Castillo in second and Slovene Petra Robnik in a tie for third with Marlies Schild.


LAKE LOUISE, Alberta, Canada — Austrian Andrea Fischbacher held on to the lead of the second training run at Lake Louise on Wednesday, coming from just outside of the first seed, but the heads were spinning for the results of Spaniard Carolina Ruiz Castillo in second and Slovene Petra Robnik in a tie for third with Marlies Schild.
    Spain hasn’t scored a World Cup point since the 1970s and has never had a racer do better than 13th. Robnik has not scored a point in any discipline.
    The two came from deep in the pack with Ruiz Castillo starting 60th and Robnik 63rd. A large group came from the back as conditions improved on the Olympic Downhill course. Britain’s Chemmy Alcott posted fifth from the 50th start, Slovene Urska Rabic got seventh from the 58th start. In fact, seven of the top-10 finishers started 46th or later, making prognostications of the outcome of the first of two women’s World Cup downhills scheduled Dec. 1 and 2 difficult at best.
    Fischbacher, obviously, has to be considered, as does Schild. Fischbacher battled windy sub-zero conditions to complete the 2.9-kilometer (1.8-mile) course in 1 minute, 51.73 seconds. Renate Goetschl posted sixth for her second excellent showing in two runs of training and first training run winner Nadia Fanchini finished tied for 10th.
    The best U.S. finisher was Libby Ludlow, who came from 61st to the 27th finish, more than two seconds off the pace. First-seeded U.S. racers Julia Mancuso, Kirsten Clark tied for 28th and Lindsey Kildow was 30th. Canada was led by Britt Janyk in ninth place, skiing from the 59th start.
    Schild won the opening two slaloms of the season. ''I haven't trained so much downhill in the last month, mostly slalom,'' she said. ''I'm surprised by my performance today, but the downhill was something I liked to race before I had some knee injuries.''  
    Downhills are scheduled Friday and Saturday, and a super G is set for Sunday.

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About the Author: Pete Rugh