Alpine nationals: Grant rebounds strong from injury

Sterling Grant had reason to smile Sunday at beautiful Alyeska. It has been a trying season for the Wisconsin racer, but she’s emerging as a potent force on the technical side.
    “I was in the lead the first run and just gave it my all the second run,” Grant said Sunday after placing second behind Resi Stiegler in the national championship slalom. “I came in second, but I’m happy with the result.”
ALYESKA RESORT, Alaska — Sterling Grant had reason to smile Sunday at beautiful Alyeska. It has been a trying season for the Wisconsin racer, but she’s emerging as a potent force on the technical side.
    “I was in the lead the first run and just gave it my all the second run,” Grant said Sunday after placing second behind Resi Stiegler in the national championship slalom. “I came in second, but I’m happy with the result.”
    In November, Grant would have been happy just to be on the hill. After some promising summer training in Chile, Grant tore her left-knee MCL in a Copper Mountain, Colorado, downhill training crash, and missed two months, most of it spent in Vail rehabbing.
    “I was out for seven weeks with an MCL tear and I just wanted to come back strong at the end of the season, came out with a great result today,” she said. “I was in Vail doing physical therapy for six weeks and I just lost a couple of World Cup spots, but I came out and I wanted to have a strong end of the season.”
    Grant led the first run with a time of 47.88 seconds on the Racing Trail run under bright sunshine. Stiegler, who has shown promise on the World Cup circuit, overtook Grant for the win, but Grant wasn’t complaining.
    “I gave it all I had and Resi was faster — it happens. She’s a great racer,” Grant said.
    She finished the season ranked third in the NorAm slalom standings, just five points from placing second and earning a World Cup slot for next season.
    “That happens. It put a little fire under my belt to do well here,” she said.
    Grant said she’d like to become more diverse.
    “My GS is coming along,” she said. “It’s not as strong as my slalom yet, but hopefully with more training, more time under my belt — I’m from Buck Hill, 280 vertical feet, so slalom every day, 20 runs a night — so haven’t got much GS experience in yet.”
    Hailey Duke made a statement Sunday, too, finishing third.
     “The snow was awesome. It’s sunny and beautiful and the atmosphere is just awesome. I just had to let it go and see what happened I guess. It worked out pretty good,” Duke said.
    It wasn’t a perfect run, she admitted.
    “I definitely sat back and let my arms fly. Now my coaches are not going to like that too much,” she said.
    Duke switched to Völkl skis at the beginning of the season and she said the move has worked well.
    “I had to get used to it for a bit, get my canting right, then everything kind of took off from there,” she said. “Each one I just tried to better myself and I just kept going and working. It was kind of an ideal season.”
    Like Grant, she wants to improve her non-slalom disciplines.
    “Slalom is definitely my strong point right now,” Duke said. “GS is catching up. I used to struggle a lot with that, but now it’s coming around nicely. I still have a lot to improve on.”
    Patrick Riml, head U.S. women’s coach, said the trio of Grant, Duke and NorAm slalom champ Kiley Staples offers hope for the U.S. team’s technical future.
    “Those are three very strong slalom skiers coming up,” Riml said. “They need to improve this summer like they did last summer and just keep on working hard. Sooner or later they will have a shot in World Cup racing experience.”