Kitzbühel: Confident U.S. crew heads for the Streif

Led by Bode Miller’s record-tying win, the American crew of racers headed to Kitzbühel for the Hahnenkamm weekend appears at or near the top of its collective game.
    Team America’s Miller, and U.S. Ski Teamers Marco Sullivan, Steven Nyman and Scott Macartney, all finished in the top 25 on the brutal and long Lauberhorn downhill last weekend at Wengen. Sullivan, who finished seventh for the best result of his career on the circuit’s longest downhill, believed any of the four U.S. racers could walk away with a win in the Hahnenkamm this Saturday.
    “When you include Bode, that’s only four Americans in a [downhill] race. It’s definitely a tight crew on the team. And on any given day, any of us can pop in there, so we’re stoked for next week,” he said.
LED BY Bode Miller’s record-tying win, the American crew of racers headed to Kitzbühel for the Hahnenkamm weekend appears at or near the top of its collective game.
    Team America’s Miller, and U.S. Ski Teamers Marco Sullivan, Steven Nyman and Scott Macartney, all finished in the top 25 on the brutal and long Lauberhorn downhill last weekend at Wengen. Sullivan, who finished seventh for the best result of his career on the circuit’s longest downhill, believed any of the four U.S. racers could walk away with a win in the Hahnenkamm this Saturday.
    “When you include Bode, that’s only four Americans in a [downhill] race. It’s definitely a tight crew on the team. And on any given day, any of us can pop in there, so we’re stoked for next week,” he said.
    Sullivan nailed the top section of the Lauberhorn before making a costly mistake within sight of the finish stadium in the infamous Ziel-S section.  
    “It’s so hard to tell when you’re on the course,” Sullivan said, “because you feel like it’s running almost 3 or 4 seconds slower than the last run of training. So in my mind I’m going, ‘come on, come on!’ I feel like I’m super-slow, and it turns out that I was OK, but then I just pooched it on the bottom. That just bummed me out. I might have been on the podium but I lost six-tenths in the last two turns. I wasn’t really that tired, I just got bounced in a weird way, and I ended up overcorrecting way more than I needed to. It is what it is.”
    U.S. coach Phil McNichol said it takes years to learn the intricacies of the Lauberhorn layout and how to negotiate the tricky turns with speed.
    “You see Marco come down with a great time, he’s right in the hunt, and you don’t do the Ziel-S right, there’s a half-second, gone. You don’t do the Brückli-S turns and the road right, you’ll have no speed all the way down through the tunnel, and there goes a second, a second and a half,” he said.
    “The big carousel turn, the Hundschopf, the Minschkante, the Canadian Corner, these are big challenging turns. You usually see one of these, maybe two in some of the other downhills. But here you see three, four, five real big downhill-type features that are unique.”
    McNichol said that for Sullivan to get a top-10 finish at Wengen was “fabulous.”
“ ‘Sully’ had a great race, just an awesome race. And he’s always struggled in a few key points here. The finish [Ziel] –S has always been a problem for him and he’s getting better, he’s getting better, he’s getting better.”
Nyman ended up 11th in the race and was pleased with his run aside from putting a hand down in the Ziel-S that cost him valuable time.
    “The bottom I skied really well,” he said, “so I was stoked except for the last little turn. I’m pleased with the day. I’m going on a six-race, no-point-scoring, DNF streak, so it’s nice to end that.”
    With the Lauberhorn in the bag, it’s time to bring on the Streif, which appears to be incredibly difficult this year.
    “I can’t remember a tougher run here,” said Didier Cuche, winner of Tuesday’s opening training run. “You are just happy to be healthy when you cross the finish line.”

    — Jack Shaw and Patrick Lang contributed to this story