Couldn’t be better for Mayer who repeats in own backyard

Home is where the heart is. For Matthias Mayer, it’s also where the first two wins of the season are.

Having claimed Olympic gold in the downhill a year ago, the 24-year-old Austrian admitted earlier in the week that his lack of victories this season had been irking him. With a sweep of the speed events on home snow in Saalbach, it’s no longer a problem.

“It’s amazing. I live just two and half hours from here,” said Mayer. “All my friends and family are here. It was an unbelievable weekend for me. Yesterday, this run was perfect and today, too. So it couldn’t be better.”

The Saalbach super G comes a day after the revamped downhill track made its World Cup debut to much acclaim. Conditions were less prime than Saturday’s downhill with snow, mist and fog characterizing the weather for most of the race. With few, if any, dates remaining on the calendar to reschedule races, the pressure was on the organizer to get this one in the books.

On the challenging hill with sharp terrain and big rollers, Sunday’s super G was set by American head multi coach Forest Carey. Mayer finished with a time of 1 minute, 31.53 seconds, nearly a quarter-second ahead of runner-up Adrien Theaux. Kjetil Jansrud was third.

“I’ve trained a lot of GS, so I had a little bit of an advantage today because of the turny parts,” said Mayer. “I can also ski the fast parts, so it was a good run for me.”

Of course, the race carried extra significance with the overall chase heating up between speed specialist Jansrud and tech ace Marcel Hirscher.

Jansrud appeared to be a man hungry for a win — maybe a little too hungry.  The Norwegian barely budged from his tuck on the upper part of the run; he made a mistake out of the Karussell and appeared harsh on the edges through the bottom.

Although Jansrud crossed the finish line in second place — just four-hundredths out of the lead — he was visibly upset with the run, banging his poles on the snow before quickly realizing things weren’t all that bad.

“I don’t think I even looked at the board before hitting my poles,” said Jansrud. “It’s not the kind of thing I do a lot, so I’m a little disappointed in myself for doing that. … I felt personally that I made a few mistakes up top, which could have costed me the victory. But that’s assuming you’re going to win every race. It’s not a good way to be an athlete. I have to apologize for throwing my poles down.”

In an effort to snatch up some points toward the overall, Hirscher also kicked out of Sunday’s super G, his third speed event of the season. The three-time overall champ showed no shortage of commitment on the long boards, charging the challenging Saalbach hill from bib 31 to finish 17th, earning 14 potentially key World Cup points in the process.

With 10 races remaining on the calendar — five tech and five speed — Jansrud is aware the odds are not currently in his favor. It will likely take a DNF from Hirscher or some sort of major mistake for the Norwegian to overtake the defending champ. (In tech, of course, this is entirely possible as Hirscher recently demonstrated in the Beaver Creek.)

The current standings are Hirscher 1028, Jansrud 912.

“These are important points in the overall — you always want more,” Jansrud said. “I wanted 200 points — that’s the best you can have, so you always aim for that. Normally, you understand you can’t have that much. Yesterday, I was a little disappointed. Today, I’m happy with the podium.”

Adrien Theaux, who took social media by storm earlier in the week with a spread eagle over the Zielsprung during training, clearly felt good on the hill. The Frenchman was able to recover from a mistake on the fallaway just below the mid station to secure the second-place result.

“It’s a nice week for me,” said Theaux. “For sure, it was a nice in the training which is why I did that spread eagle. It was a tough course yesterday and still today. With the light it was very difficult, lots of rolls. It was not easy, but I am very, very happy with my run today.

After battling a stomach bug and fever, forcing him to miss the downhill Saturday, Travis Ganong led the American team in ninth, matching his career second-best super G result.

“I really was not expecting anything,” said Ganong. “Yesterday, I was really sick, most sick I’ve ever felt in my life. … This morning I didn’t spin on the bike or do any warmup or anything — I just showed up and skied. I had no plan really, just went gate to gate. Maybe that’s a good thing.”

The men’s tour moves on to Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany, for downhill and GS races scheduled Feb. 28 and March 1.

See more photos from this race in our gallery here.

The Scoop

By Hank McKee

1. Mayer, Head/Head/Head
2. Theaux, Head/Head/Head
3. Jansrud, Head/Head/Head
4. Janka, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
5. Pinturault, Head/Head/Head
6. Marsaglia, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
7. Kilde, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
8. Roger, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
9. Ganong, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
10. Puchner, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic

Men’s World cup super G, Saalbach, Austria, Feb. 22, 2015:

• It is the 27^th race of the men’s 38 race World Cup schedule … the fifth of seven super G’s. … It is the 28^th World Cup race held at least in part at Saalbach … the third super G and the first since 1988.
• It is the third career World Cup win for Matthias Mayer and the second in two days having also claimed the downhill Feb. 21. … It is his first win in super G. … It is the 15^th Austrian win of the World Cup season. … The winning margin is 0.23 of a second. … Top nine are within the same second. … Top 24 within two seconds.
• It is the 11^th career World Cup podium placing for Adrien Theaux. … It is his second podium of the season, and a seasonal best result…. He was also third in super G at World Championships.
• It is the 22^nd career World Cup podium for Kjetil Jansrud. … His ninth of the season including a silver medal at Worlds in combined.
• It is the 13^th career World Cup top-10 placing for Travis Ganong, his third in super G. …He has been better in the discipline once, at Kitzbuehel Jan. 26, 2014. … Andrew Weibrecht matches his tenth best World Cup SG result … his third best of the season. … It is the tenth career World Cup scoring result for Dustin Cook. … He has placed better eight times previously this season. … It is the 11^th career World Cup scoring result for Jared Goldberg.
• Marcel Hirscher (17^th in race) holds the lead of the World Cup overall standings 1028-912 over Kjetil Jansrud (third in race). … Alexis Pinturault (fifth in race) is third with 699pts. … Ted Ligety leads the U.S. in 12^th overall with 420pts. … Manuel Osborne-Paradis is the top Canadian in 41^st with 153pts.
• Jansrud leads the super G standings 376-303 over Dominik Paris (14^th in race). … Matthias Mayer is third in super G with 274pts. … Andrew Weibrecht is top American in 13^th with 106pts. … Dustin Cook is the top Canadian in 17^th with 79pts.

Results