Hinterstoder super G results in Austrian win
After two straight days of snow, Hinterstoder managed to get the weekend’s races underway Saturday morning. Vincent Kriechmayr made the wait worth the while by winning his second race of the season in front of the home crowd. Kriechmayr was the first man down the mountain, making the wait in the hot seat ever so stressful as some of his top competitors made a play for the win. At the end of the day, Mauro Caviezel settled for second, 0.05 seconds off of Kriechmayr, and Matthias Mayer settled for third, 0.08 seconds off of his teammate.
The fact that the race got underway was impressive in itself. Friday’s alpine combined was canceled and rescheduled to Saturday, while the giant slalom was pushed to Monday to compensate for the weather. Bad weather did not stop the Austrian fans from coming out to the race in droves, creating a roar so loud it good be heard from the start. Hinterstoder’s super G track is, as described by Team USA’s Travis Ganong, one of the cooler tracks the men get to ski. While the race was still exciting, it was not necessarily exciting for the right reasons, as a majority of the field struggled with the quickly softening snow.
Both Aleksander Kilde and Thomas Dressen crashed during their runs. Kilde, fortunately, walked away unscathed but fell behind Kriechmayr and Caviezel in the super G standings by a couple of points, meaning the globe is still up for grabs. Kilde still leads in the overall standings, despite Henrik Kristoffersen’s attempts to earn more points by competing in the super G, a move uncharacteristic of the tech specialist. Dressen, on the other hand, was not as fortunate. He rose from his fall clutching his right shoulder, which seemed to get caught up behind him in the fall.
Travis Ganong was the best American finisher of the day, skiing into 15th just ahead of two hundredths ahead of his teammate Ryan Cochran-Siegle. Given the conditions for those guys running later in the start list, Ganong said that he felt the race had been a bit unfair, as the course deteriorated quickly after the first 10 men ran.
“If we had started the race at nine or ten it would have been pretty fun, good snow, and a fair race but then, unfortunately, it got super super warm and the snow just turned to garbage. It was some of the worst snow I’ve ever raced in,” said Ganong. “I’ve trained in worse snow, but normally we would never race if it was like that. I think it was good for the first 10-15 dudes and then it for sure warmed up, broke down and the salt didn’t really work because of all the fresh snow. At least we still got the race in and so far nobody’s hurt, except for maybe Dressen.”
After a tough race in Hinterstoder, the men are looking forward to getting the last set of speed races prior to finals underway. The tour heads to Kvitfjell, Norway March 7th and 8th for one last super G and downhill.
“Central Europe is just so warm these days so it’ll be fun to get back up to Scandanavia, it’s gonna be cold and really good conditions and it’s always so fun to ski there,” says Ganong.
Top 10
- Vincent Kriechmayr (AUT): 1:33.08
- Mauro Caviezel (SUI): +0.05
- Matthias Mayer (AUT): +0.08
- Alexis Pinturault (FRA): +0.24
- Beat Feuz (SUI): +0.93
- Kjetil Jansrud (NOR): +1.15
- Nils Allegre (FRA): +1.58
- Mattia Casse (ITA): +1.65
- Emanuele (ITA): +1.67
- Gino Caviezel (SUI): +1.94
For full results, click here.
About the Author: Mackenzie Moran
