Wengen: Miller crushes field in final trainer
Last year's winner Bode Miller crushed the rest of the field in Thursday's third and last training run held on the Lauberhorn downhill course, clocking a time of 2 minutes, 27.25 seconds at the end of the legendary Swiss run of a length of 4,480 meters and a vertical drop of 1,028 meters.
The four-time world champion beat his closest rival, Canada’s Manuel Osborne-Paradis by an impressive 1.77 seconds while Klaus Kroell from Austria tied with Italy’s Kurt Sulzenbacher 1.92 seconds back.
Last year's winner Bode Miller crushed the rest of the field in Thursday's third and last training run held on the Lauberhorn downhill course, clocking a time of 2:27.25 seconds at the end of the legendary Swiss run of a length of 4,480 meters and a vertical drop of 1,028 meters.
The four-time world champion beat his closest rival, Canada’s Manuel Osborne-Paradis by an impressive 1.77 seconds while Klaus Kroell from Austria tied with Italy’s Kurt Sulzenbacher 1.92 seconds back.
Many favorites, including Austria’s Michael Walchhofer, a winner here two years ago, and Switzerland’s Didier Cuche, second last season and second twice in previous practice runs this week, skipped this last time trial to save energy prior the Super-combined events on Friday.
Overall World Cup leader Benjamin Raich, one of the leaders to beat in Friday’s combined event, also preferred to train slalom instead of downhill as did Switzerland’s Marc Berthod and Daniel Albrecht.
Hermann Maier, still fighting for his first top-10 finish in downhill this season, was a distant 17th, losing almost five seconds on Miller during his run. The former “Herminator” took no unnecessary risks in the lower part of his run after setting the sixth best intermediate time at the top.
Miller, an impressive winner two weeks ago at Bormio, was clearly the fastest in all intermediate split-times, gaining chunks of time on his rivals in the difficult turns of the "Kernen-S" located at the middle of the long run.
"I think he achieved one of the all-time best performances in that section, he was really amazing there," said Swiss Head Coach Martin Rufener. "Fortunately for his rivals, it’s almost impossible to ski so well twice in a row in this part of the course, it’s such a tricky section," Rufener added with a grin. "He surely was close to perfection today, yet his huge advance on other skiers at the arrival doesn’t mean too much since many top specialists didn’t train today."
In recent years, only Austrian-born Marc Girardelli, who competed for Luxembourg until 1996, achieved a more impressive performance when he won in January 1989, beating Switzerland’s Pirmin Zurbriggen, the 1988 Olympic Champion at Calgary, by 1.92 seconds.
Yet the greatest winning margin on this course still belongs to skiing legend Franz Klammer, the 1976 Olympic downhill champion, who won here in 1975 by 3.54 seconds over Italy’s Herbert Plank.
Last year Miller won the race with a comfortable edge of .65 of a second on Cuche and 1.47 seconds less than Italy’s Peter Fill. The American fought so hard for victory at that occasion that he had foreseen falling after the last jumps leading towards the finish line to be sure to stay on the straightest possible line.
"I didn’t want to leave anything out there and I pretty much knew at the start I’ll be doing that," he said at the post-race press conference. "You are so tired in the last turns that your body tells you to go straight.
"It’s definitely a demanding classical course with a lot of challenging sections," explained the champion from New Hampshire this year after his training run. "I wonder how skiers could master those difficulties so well in the past with their skis."
Fritz Zueger, one of Miller’s assistant-trainers, praised the passion regularly demonstrated by the boss of "Team America" who aims to achieve the same kind of impressive performances as a newly "independent" skier as when he was a member of the US Ski team.
"He is just amazing, I have never seen anybody working so hard and so well to be the best," said Zueger, a former trainer of the men Swiss team also hired by Girardelli in the late 1980s. "This morning he trained slalom before entering this practice run and later on today, he will play football with us and also ice-hockey to take care of shape," Zueger added. "He is incredibly sharp, accurate and consistently checks all kinds of technical parameters regarding his equipment or his preparation. I think his organization is pretty impressive and way ahead of all the other ones on the tour."
Rainer Salzgeberg, director of Head Skis racing department, was also stunned today by Miller’s smooth and fast run. "He has reached such a great level of confidence and comfort with his equipment that he doesn’t need anymore to take as many risks as in the past to win," Salzgeber explained. "You could already see how relaxed he was last month in Bormio during his winning run, today he just let it go without trying to push himself too hard."
In case he can repeat a similar flawless run on Friday, Miller definitely has a chance to battle for a podium finish in the Super-combined which starts in the morning with a downhill leg and finishes in the afternoon with a short slalom run.
The other contenders for victory besides Raich, Albrecht, the winner at Beaver Creek in November, or Berthod. Others are France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange, third at Beaver Creek, Mario Matt, who excelled here last year and Rainer Schoenfelder, 25th in Tuesday’s first training run.
Rank | Bib | FIS Code | Name | Year | Nation | Total Time |
1 | 20 | 532431 | MILLER Bode | 1977 | USA | 2:27.25 |
2 | 13 | 102899 | OSBORNE-PARADIS Manuel | 1984 | CAN | 2:29.02 |
3 | 23 | 50753 | KROELL Klaus | 1980 | AUT | 2:29.17 |
3 | 8 | 291641 | SULZENBACHER Kurt | 1976 | ITA | 2:29.17 |
5 | 4 | 50858 | STREITBERGER Georg | 1981 | AUT | 2:29.60 |
6 | 5 | 291389 | FISCHNALLER Roland | 1975 | ITA | 2:29.71 |
7 | 9 | 533131 | SULLIVAN Marco | 1980 | USA | 2:29.78 |
8 | 18 | 533866 | NYMAN Steven | 1982 | USA | 2:30.23 |
9 | 28 | 510165 | HOFER Beni | 1978 | SUI | 2:30.40 |
10 | 42 | 293141 | VARETTONI Silvano | 1984 | ITA | 2:30.43 |
11 | 25 | 201606 | KEPPLER Stephan | 1983 | GER | 2:30.97 |
12 | 34 | 561067 | PERKO Rok | 1985 | SLO | 2:31.16 |
13 | 6 | 293006 | INNERHOFER Christof | 1984 | ITA | 2:31.23 |
14 | 38 | 510207 | HARI Konrad | 1978 | SUI | 2:31.25 |
15 | 2 | 530939 | WEIBRECHT Andrew | 1986 | USA | 2:31.52 |
16 | 10 | 102263 | GUAY Erik | 1981 | CAN | 2:31.92 |
17 | 15 | 50423 | MAIER Hermann | 1972 | AUT | 2:32.04 |
18 | 41 | 510969 | BONETTI Michael | 1982 | SUI | 2:32.33 |
19 | 50 | 292967 | EISATH Florian | 1984 | ITA | 2:32.40 |
20 | 33 | 560447 | SPORN Andrej | 1981 | SLO | 2:32.47 |
21 | 37 | 40171 | BRANCH Craig | 1977 | AUS | 2:32.48 |
22 | 39 | 380292 | ZRNCIC-DIM Natko | 1986 | CRO | 2:32.53 |
23 | 49 | 292150 | HAPPACHER Alex | 1979 | ITA | 2:32.55 |
24 | 45 | 50742 | REICHELT Hannes | 1980 | AUT | 2:32.80 |
25 | 31 | 220228 | MICKEL Finlay | 1977 | GBR | 2:32.98 |
26 | 48 | 292056 | GUFLER Michael | 1979 | ITA | 2:33.38 |
27 | 54 | 50824 | DREIER Christoph | 1981 | AUT | 2:33.55 |
28 | 26 | 51215 | BAUMANN Romed | 1986 | AUT | 2:33.57 |
29 | 52 | 50900 | KOLL Alexander | 1982 | AUT | 2:33.83 |
30 | 57 | 201811 | STECHERT Tobias | 1985 | GER | 2:34.12 |
31 | 56 | 480736 | HOROSHILOV Alexandr | 1984 | RUS | 2:34.30 |
32 | 53 | 293079 | PITTSCHIELER Kurt | 1984 | ITA | 2:34.58 |
33 | 17 | 191415 | BOTTOLLIER-LASQUIN Marc | 1979 | FRA | 2:40.23 |
34 | 58 | 60159 | VAN BUYNDER Frederik | 1988 | BEL | 2:40.37 |