Chamonix: Marco Sullivan gets first win in DH

Marco Sullivan joined the ranks of World Cup winners Saturday when he beat DH standings leader Didier Cuche to win the 60th Alberg-Kandahar downhill. Sullivan got the eighth U.S. win of the season with a time slightly over two minutes down the 3,370meter Verte track at Chamonix. He is just the third American to win this season, the others being Bode Miller with three wins and Lindsey Vonn with four.
    Sullivan was four tenths of a second faster than Cuche with Andrej Jerman getting Slovenia's first podium of the season in third .46 back.
    "I knew I could kill 'em with my gliding if I could carry my speed off the top. It all came together," Sullivan said. "I wasn't sure if my run would be good enough to win. I had a couple of small scrubs [of time] on top, but I knew this was my kind of course and I knew I had a good run."
    Canada's Manny Osborne-Paradis took fifth and Bode Miller seventh. T.J. Lanning started 55th and finished 23rd.

Marco Sullivan joined the ranks of World Cup winners Saturday when he beat DH standings leader Didier Cuche to win the 60th Alberg-Kandahar downhill. Sullivan got the eighth U.S. win of the season with a time slightly over two minutes down the 3,370meter Verte track at Chamonix. He is just the third American to win this season, the others being Bode Miller with three wins and Lindsey Vonn with four.
   Sullivan was four tenths of a second faster than Cuche with Andrej Jerman getting Slovenia's first podium of the season in third .46 back.
    "I knew I could kill 'em with my gliding if I could carry my speed off the top. It all came together," Sullivan said. "I wasn't sure if my run would be good enough to win. I had a couple of small scrubs [of time] on top, but I knew this was my kind of course and I knew I had a good run."
    Canada's Manny Osborne-Paradis took fifth and Bode Miller seventh.
    Sullivan said he made some mistakes along the lengthy track but didn't let them bother him.
    "I knew it was solid for sure, but I didn't know it was a winner by any means," he said of his run. "I made a few mistakes in there, but just kept it rolling. I was six-tenths ahead of Manny (Osborne-Paradis) when I finished and he won the training run yesterday so I knew it was fast."
    The win was the first downhill win ever for Nordica skis and Sullivan said he hoped his sponsor would be pleased.
    "The top is pretty technical," he said. "There are some big carousel turns in the first 40 seconds and some jumps and it's key to nailing it in there because then it flattens out and it's pretty much in a tuck the rest of the course. I knew if I could get through there I could smoke it on the bottom."
    Cuche said he was completely satisfied with his performance. "That is the best I can do on a piste like this," he said. "Consistency is what matters if you want to win Cups and I finished ahead of my main World Cup rivals."
    He said the Chamonix track did not suit his technical skills and was a glider's course. Apparently Switzerland has not had gliders in a long time, as his placing was the first Swiss men's podium result at Chamonix since Kurt Huggler in 1968.

Sullivan: "I never slowed down"
"I had bib No. 11 and that's my sister's favorite number. I talked to her last night and told her I was gonna lay one down for her," a smiling Sullivan said in the finish after phone calls to two missing teammates. "I felt like I was skiing for more people than myself. I talked to [Steven] Nyman and I talked to 'Mac' [Scott Macartney] , and they're both out with injuries. So, in the start, I told myself, 'This is for everybody'."
    Although there was a bright sun in a cloudless sky, there were shadows which were problematic for some skiers. "It was dark in the shadows, but I had this funny confidence I wasn't gonna hit any bumps," Sullivan said. "I couldn't see in the flats, but I just kept standing on that Nordica ski and kept rolling. I never slowed down."
    He was amped a bit more than usual, he said, "because it was race day. I was catching more air off some of the jumps than in training. I was charging."
    Securing his first two podiums are a payoff for the hard work Sullivan has put into his training and skiing after suffering torn right knee ligaments in a Dec. 4, 2003 training crash at the Birds of Prey races in Beaver Creek, Colo. He reinjured the knee and missed the 2005 season, returning to make the 2006 Olympic Team.
    U.S. downhill head coach Chris Brigham said simply, "Quite a day, quite a fantastic day. The boy was very impressive. Obviously, it's been an emotional week for all of us, the athletes and the coaches, the Team as a group with Mac and Steven being injured and not here. But this caps it off nicely. Unfortunately, Steven and Mac aren't here or we could have had one hell of a day.
    "Marco's just stepped up his game over the last couple of years, and he's become more of a professional – and now it's showing," Brigham said.

Brigham" Do they know Marco's coming…?"
Track conditions were hard and fast after a week of mostly blue skies and temperatures near freezing. "This course is right up Marco's alley. He's become a much better turner and I asked Phil [McNichol, men's head coach] at breakfast, looking at the sunshine and the beautiful day, 'Do they know Marco's coming today?' You couldn't ask for a nicer setting for the Cali boy. And Bode was hurting from a crash in training, so it was nice to see him muscle his way there and get it done, get some points and tighten that overall race."
    McNichol agreed. "This was epic for Marco. Good guy, smile on his face all the way down and he deserved it. He's skied better and better this year, and he really pinned it today. He skied early, so we knew he was fast but the question was whether his time would hold up.
    "And T.J., coming off that Europa Cup downhill win last week, is in a good place, too. He's confident, he's skiing well and good for him."

A great day for Slovenia
   It was also an excellent day for Jerman who got his first World Cup podium of the season.
   "I have often been pretty close to the podium this season after finishing fourth in super G at Lake Louise," he said. "I was very fast in recent downhills but I (have) always made too many mistakes. Last week at Kitzbuhel I was one of the quickest at the top but I blew the middle section. I was very frustrated afterwards because it was such a big event, so I wanted to fight back here."

And for Schoenfelder
   In Sunday's super combined Rainer Schoenfelder is now the skier to beat. He was thrilled with his fourth place finish, mugging for the television cameras and pointing to his name on the finish board. "It is a huge achievement for me," he said, "because downhill is such a fascinating specialty. I was not so lucky this month since
my comeback at Adelboden but now I aim for another great race in Sunday."
    The men face a super combined Sunday with a downhill and one run of slalom. They have the same schedule next weekend in Val d'Isere, host of the 2009 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships – downhill and super combined.

– Hank McKee, USSA and Patrick Lang contributed to this story.

The SCOOP

By Hank McKee

Equipment
Men's Downhill, Chamonix, France, Jan. 26, 2008
1 Sullivan, Nordica/Nordica/Marker
2 Cuche, Head/Head/Tyrolia
3 Jerman, Stoeckli/Lange/Atomic
4 Schoenfelder, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
5 Osborne-Paradis, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
6 Buechel, Head/Lange/Tyrolia
7 Miller, Head/Head/Tyrolia
8 Kostelic, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
8 Hoffmann, Head/Lange/Tyrolia
10 Kroell, Salomon/Nordica/Salomon
 
Men's Downhill, Chamonix, France. … Jan. 26, 2008. … It is the 26th race of the men's 41 event 2008 World Cup schedule. … It is the seventh of 10 scheduled downhills. … It is the first race of a two race stop at Chamonix and the 60th Alberg-Kandahar. … It is the 26th World Cup race at Chamonix, the tenth downhill and the seventh men's downhill.
    It is the first career World Cup win for Marco Sullivan. … He had been second once previously, this season Nov. 24 at Lake Louise. … It is the eighth World Cup win of the season for the U.S. … Sullivan joins Lindsey Vonn (four) and Bode Miller (three) as the only U.S. winners this season. … He and Jan Hudec who won the first of the season are the only men under the age of 30 to win downhills this season.
    It is the 39th career World Cup podium for Didier Cuche. … His 18th in downhill. … It is his ninth podium of the season. … The fifth in downhill. … He has only missed a downhill podium twice this season, when he was fourth at Bormio Dec. 29 and at Lake Louise Nov. 24 when he was 17th.
    It is the third career World Cup podium for Andrej Jerman, all coming in DH, and the other two coming back-to-back at Garmisch last February when he was first and second. … It is his country's first podium of the season.
    Fifth matches Manuel Osborne-Paradis' fourth best career result and is his second best of the season after a third place finish at Wengen. … It is the best result in a DH at Chamonix ever for a Canadian male. … Nancy Greene won here Feb. 23, 1968 for the only better Canadian placing. … It is the 115th top ten result for Bode Miller. … His 13th of the season. … He has finished eighth or better in six of the seven downhills held this season. … Erik Guay matches his worst scoring finish of the season in 17th. … It is the 34th time Francois Bourque has been 19th or better in a World Cup race, but it is his third best career DH finish. … It is the 28th career top 20 for John Kucera. … 14 of them coming this season. … It is the fifth career scoring result for TJ Lanning and his first in downhill. … It is just the second career scoring result for Robbie Dixon, the other a sixth Jan. 18 in SG at Kitzbuehel.
    Winning margin is .40 of a second. … Top nine are within a second. … Top 28 within two seconds. … Benjamin Raich (33rd in race) loses ground but still leads the World Cup overall standings 892-874 for Didier Cuche. … Cuche moved past Bode Miller who now holds third at 867. … Jean-Baptiste Grange (did not race) is fourth at 636. … Cuche maintains his lead in the downhill standings 464-399 for Miller. … Michael Walchhofer (18th in race) is third at 343 and Sullivan advances to fourth place with 278pts.

Did not start 1st run : WEIBRECHT Andrew (USA)
Did not finish 1st run : DALCIN Pierre-Emmanuel (FRA), CLAREY Johan (FRA)