Lenzerheide: Svindal wins DH, Ligety 4th

Too many races? Aksel Lund Svindal doesn’t want to hear about it. For the big Norwegian, the current World Cup calendar is just fine — races, races, races.
    Wednesday was what Svindal lives for — racing. Wednesday was what Svindal has become famous at — winning. Under seemingly scorching blue skies in postcard Lenzerheide, Svindal scorched the Silvano Beltrametti course for a downhill victory that could be the first nail in the coffin for rival Benni Raich in the chase for the overall.
     Svindal clocked a winning time of 1 minute, 18.97 seconds in an event marred by two crashes that delayed the race and led to different course conditions for later racers. The 24-year-old Norwegian moved into second place in the overall standings behind Austria’s Benjamin Raich.

LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland — Too many races? Aksel Lund Svindal doesn’t want to hear about it. For the big Norwegian, the current World Cup calendar is just fine — races, races, races.
    Wednesday was what Svindal lives for — racing. Wednesday was what Svindal has become famous at — winning. Under seemingly scorching blue skies in postcard Lenzerheide, Svindal scorched the Silvano Beltrametti course for a downhill victory that could be the first nail in the coffin for rival Benni Raich in the chase for the overall.
     Svindal clocked a winning time of 1 minute, 18.97 seconds in an event marred by two crashes that delayed the race and led to different course conditions for later racers. The 24-year-old Norwegian moved into second place in the overall standings behind Austria’s Raich.
    Switzerland’s Daniel Albrecht delighted home fans by finishing second in 1:19.02 for his best career downhill result. Austria’s Christoph Gruber was third in 1:19.04.
    “I was surprised I was so fast,” Svindal said. “That was important for me in order to get points. But it’s never pleasant when you are waiting at the start and two of your colleagues are hurt.”
     Ted Ligety was a surprise fourth-place finisher. Bode Miller was ninth, Steven Nyman 15th and Marco Sullivan did not finish.
    Raich finished 13th in the downhill, knocking Miller out of the chase for the overall title. Miller — who was still mathematically in contention going into the race — finished only ninth in the downhill.
    Switzerland’s Didier Cuche, the new World Cup downhill champion, dropped from second to third in the overall standings after tying for fifth with Hermann Maier in the final race.
    “It’s good to be in it for the overall, but it’s important to enjoy the day also, and don’t calculate too much with the points in December and January,” Svindal said.
    Cuche, who had already clinched the title coming into the race, received the discipline crystal globe from former Swiss great Bernhard Russi. He finished the season with 652 points after 11 downhill races. Marco Buechel of Liechtenstein was second with 471 points and Canada’s Erik Guay third with 393.
    “It’s a good feeling. It’s a great feeling," Russi said of his countryman winning the downhill globe. " … It was not easy for him, especially this season with all those [close second-place finishes]. But he kept on fighting, he was calm, and for Switzerland, this means a lot.”
    Former world champion Bruno Kernen of Switzerland was airlifted from the course with suspected neck and knee injuries after badly landing a jump coming out of a turn. The helicopter returned to collect France’s Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin, who also crashed. The crashes delayed the race for more than 30 minutes after each incident.
    Cuche is 67 points behind Raich in the overall. Miller is 303 points off the lead, with only another 300 points up for grabs in the last three races of the season.
    Raich needs as many points as possible in the speed events before his preferred technical races this weekend, but has an extra challenge as only the top 15 score at the World Cup Finals. Normally, the top 30 finishers get points.
    Raich benefited from the course's tight gates, which helped the technical skiers compete against the best downhillers. Still, he was a bit disappointed.
    ''I probably gave away too much speed up top in the steep section,'' he said.
    Albrecht gave the home fans reason to cheer even as they held their breath for Kernen.
    “Yeah, it’s very exciting," Albrecht said of his podium. "I never expected to be so fast in downhill. I knew I could ski fast in downhill when it’s steep but I never thought I could be that fast.
    “I like this slope, it’s very steep and turny. I’m fast in speed disciplines at the moment.”
    Albrecht said he aspires to be the overall threat that Svindal is. “Aksel is a year or two years older and I have known him since I was a child, 5 or 6 years. I saw him at world juniors when he told me that he wanted to win championships and go for the overall. I also want that. It takes a lot of time and discipline, but I think that’s the future.”

Ligety not just a tech racer
    Ligety has officially shed his slalom specialist label, with tremendous showings in GS this season and now this downhill effort.
    “The kid’s a race horse," U.S. men's coach John McBride said. "He comes out on race day and he’s all business. I’m just psyched to see him put it together on a speed track. This hill in particular suited his skiing —  it’s technical, not like a traditional downhill with a lot of big gliding sections. He took advantage of it, great start number and put the hammer down. I’m stoked.”
    Ligety has a number of fourth-place finishes this season — five, he counted.
    “Lot of wooden spoons," McBride said. "This is by far his best downhill race results-wise. He’s stoked. Of course he’s two-hunnies [hundredths] off the podium. You’d like to try be on the right side of the hunnies, but he’s pretty psyched.”
    “Getting fourth place is always frustrating, for sure,” Ligety said. “This season I’ve been kind of the wooden spoon king. Five I think it is so far this year. The worse thing is, seven-hundredths [out of third place] has been kind of my magical number this year, and had I had seven-hundredths faster here, would have been second place. Seven-hundredths faster at Beaver Creek would have won the GS. So many different things like that. Kind of frustrating if you look at that respect, but at the same time, fourth place is a good finish. I never would have expected it in a downhill."
    Ligety started third and while the race was run entirely in bright sunshine, many of the later racers ran in warmer temperatures and softer snow.
    "I got really lucky on the soft snow conditions for the later guys with all those course holds," Ligety said. "Otherwise it wouldn’t have turned out that way, had it been normal co
nditions for everybody. But that’s ski racing sometimes. Sometimes people get lucky and I got to take it for what it is.”
    U.S. downhill head coach Chris Brigham said, “It’s a good course for Ted. We started from the women’s start, which was our super G start two years ago when Bode and ‘D’ [Daron Rahlves] tied for the super G win. It turns all the way down, which plays to Ted’s technical strengths.”
    Can Ligety win a downhill?
    “Anything’s possible. Anything’s possible," McBride said. "I think on a technical turny course like this, hard snow, yeah he could.”

Small mistakes cost Nyman
    Nyman had a small mistake up high and another down low, but in between he was among the best racers of the day. He was forced to wait for more than half an hour after Dalcin crashed just before him.
    “I remain calm. It’s my style. I don’t get like super-amped when I ski," Nyman said of the course hold. "It’s all more confidence in myself and I knew what I needed to do today. I had a stupid brain fart down here, other than that I was going super-fast, like 16-hundredths out.”
    The downhill also served as a nice warmup for Miller, who looks to hold on to his super G points lead. With only Thursday’s SG remaining, he has 254 points with Canadian John Kucera second at 178 and Austrian Mario Scheiber No. 3 at 170.
    “He skied well and this should have been a good help for Bode. He’s doing well and tomorrow should be quite a race,” Brigham said.
    The men ski first again Thursday for their super G. Brigham said that also should help Miller “because the course is hard and fast early on; it gets extremely warm in the afternoons — plus-11 Celsius [about 51 F Tuesday] — but they’ve done a really good job of preparing the course.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this report

THE SCOOP
By Hank McKee

Equipment
Men's DH, Lenzerheide, March 14, 2007
Skier, skis/boots/bindings
1 Svindal, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
2 Albrecht, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
3 Gruber, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
4 Ligety, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
5 Cuche, Head/Head/Tyrolia
5 Maier, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
7 Buder, Head/Lange/Tyrolia
8 Buechel, Head/Lange/Tyrolia
9 Miller, Head/Head/Tyrolia
10 Hoffmann, Head/Lange/Tyrolia

Men's downhill, Lenzerheide, Switzerland, March 14, 2007. … It is the first race of World Cup Finals. … The 33rd race of the men's season. … Three races remain for the men of what was originally a 38-race schedule. … The fields at Finals are limited and points are allotted to 15th place only.
    It is the fifth career win for Aksel Lund Svindal. … His second in DH. … The previous at Are March 15, 2006. … It is his fifth win of the season counting two gold medals (DH & GS) at World Championships.
    It is a career-best placing for Daniel Albrecht. … The previous best a fourth, once in combined at Wengen Jan. 14, 2005, and once in slalom at Beaver Creek Dec. 3, 2006. … His previous best in DH had been 27th at Lillehammer March 12, 2003.
    It is the 12th career Cup podium for Christoph Gruber, but just his second in DH, the other a second at Wengen Jan. 15, 2005.
    It is the ninth top four for Ted Ligety, and his best career DH result. … It is his only DH result. … It is the 100th top 10 result for Bode Miller. … It is his fifth-best DH result of the season, including Worlds. … It is his fifth-best of five scoring finishes at Lenzerheide, which also hosted the Finals in 2005. … It is the eighth top 15 of the season for Steven Nyman. … In 15th he is the last racer to gain points from the race. … Erik Guay finishes out of the scoring positions 21st.
    Benjamin Raich (13th in race) maintains the lead in the overall standings, but it shrinks to 23 points. … He leads Svindal 1,075-1,052. … Cuche sits third at 1,008 and Miller fourth at 772. … Miller cannot win the overall title. … Final downhill standings have Didier Cuche (5th in race) over Marco Buechel (8th in race) 652-471 with Erik Guay third at 383. … Bode Miller finishes eighth (318), Steven Nyman 10th (250), Marco Sullivan 23rd (134), Scott Macartney  28th (97), and Ted Ligety 35th (50). … Winning margin is .05. … Top 17 are within a second. … Top 23 within two seconds.

Lenzerheide men's World Cup downhill results

Did not start 1st run:
JERMAN Andrej (SLO)

Did not finish 1st run:
DALCIN Pierre-Emmanuel (FRA), KERNEN Bruno (SUI), GRUGGER Hans (AUT), KROELL Klaus (AUT), SULLIVAN Marco (USA)

World Cup downhill standings
After 11 races
1. Didier Cuche, Switzerland, 652.
2. Marco Buechel, Liechtenstein, 471.
3. Erik Guay, Canada, 393.
4. Peter Fill, Italy, 382.
5. Michael Walchhofer, Austria, 370.
6. Andrej Jerman, Slovenia, 339.
7. Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway, 321.
8. Bode Miller, United States, 318.
9. Mario Scheiber, Austria, 254.
10. Steven Nyman, United States, 250.
11. Christoph Gruber, Austria, 242.
12. Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Canada, 241.
13. Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin, France, 227.
14. Ambrosi Hoffmann, Switzerland, 222.
15. Fritz Strobl, Austria, 220.
16. Bruno Kernen, Switzerland, 214.
17. Andreas Buder, Austria, 198.
18. Hermann Maier, Austria, 189.
19. Hans Grugger, Austria, 182.
20. Patrick Staudacher, Italy, 177.

Overall standings
After 33 of 36 races
1. Benjamin Raich, Austria, 1,075 points.
2. Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway, 1,052.
3. Didier Cuche, Switzerland, 1,008.
4. Bode Miller, United States, 772.
5. Peter Fill, Italy, 694.
6. Mario Matt, Austria, 664.
7. Marco Buechel, Liechtenstein, 585.
8. Mario Scheiber, Austria, 564.
9. Michael Walchhofer, Austria, 498.
10. Silvan Zurbriggen, Switzerland, 497.
(tie) Didier Defago, Switzerland, 497.
12. Marc Berthod, Switzerland, 496.
13. Ted Ligety, United States, 490.
14. Kalle Palander, Finland, 482.
15. Erik Guay, Canada, 469.