Kvitfjell: Hoffman fastest in DH training

Switzerland’s Ambrosi Hoffmann clocked the fastest time in the training run Thursday morning on the Olympic course in Kvitfjell, near Lillehammer, where the last men’s World Cup races prior to the Finals at Lenzerheide are scheduled from Friday to Sunday.

KVITFJELL, Norway — Switzerland’s Ambrosi Hoffmann clocked the fastest time in the training run Thursday morning on the Olympic course in Kvitfjell, near Lillehammer, where the last men’s World Cup races prior to the Finals at Lenzerheide are scheduled from Friday to Sunday.
    A super combined, a downhill and a super G are planned on the slope that hosted some of the 1994 Olympic competitions.
    The 29-year-old racer from Davos, third here in March 2005, steamed down the Norwegian course in a time of 1 minute, 46.74 seconds, .19 better than training partner Marco Buechel from Liechtenstein and by .46 ahead of Austria’s Christoph Gruber.
    Downhill World Cup leader Didier Cuche from Switzerland came in fifth, only a few hundredths behind Canada’s Erik Guay, the winner in the last downhill race at Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
    Hans Gruber from Austria was sixth ahead of Hermann Maier, who has celebrated five of his 53 World Cup wins in Kvitfjell. Maier, who suffered a frozen big toe at the Are World Championships, skipped the last races at Kranjska Gora to rest and regroup. The Herminator is still aiming for his first victory this season.
    Slovenia’s Andrej Jerman, the surprising winner in the first downhill at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, lost 1.37 seconds on Hoffmann and was a distant 16th.
    The two top favorites for the overall World Cup crown, Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal and Austria’s Benjamin Raich were not particularly fast. Svindal, the new downhill world champion, clocked the 12th-best time, while Raich was 32nd, one-hundredth behind USA’s Bode Miller.
    Switzerland’s Marc Berthod, who leads the super combined standings ahead of Svindal, was 5.56 seconds behind Hoffmann. Super combined world champion Daniel Albrecht was not brilliant either — he was 54th. Those two might have a hard time fighting with Svindal and Raich for victory in this season’s last super combined.
    Interestingly enough, none of them has really excelled in downhill this winter. Svindal’s best results this season on the World Cup tour have been a couple of sixth places. Raich has scored only three times in that specialty. The Tyrolian leads the overall classification by 77 points but he will need to improve his level in the coming two speed events to keep his position after this Norwegian stop.
    France’s Antoine Deneriaz, the reigning Olympic champion, didn’t train Thursday as he focuses on Sunday’s super G after a series of disappointing results in downhill. His best result in downhill this winter was a modest 22nd place in January at Val d’Isère in the race won by teammate Pierre Emmanuel Dalcin.
    Both Berthod, who got bronze at Are in the combined event, and Cuche, third last week in Germany, aim to become the first Swiss males to capture a crystal globe since the overall World Cup win of Paul Accola in 1992.
    Cuche, particularly consistent this season in downhill despite not winning a single race, has reached the podium five times and has a lead of 128 points on Buechel in downhill. Another solid performance here would help him to stay out of reach for the veteran from Vaduz, who became to oldest skier to win a World Cup race last November in Lake Louise.