Lenzerheide: Hosp wins SL, overtakes Schild for overall standings lead; Mancuso 16th

Austrian Nicole Hosp won the World Cup Finals slalom Saturday to wrest the overall standings lead from teammate Marlies Schild, who hiked twice in the second run and failed to score points.
    American Julia Mancuso was 16th. Only the top 15 score points at World Cup Finals, meaning Mancuso’s battle for the overall is finished. She’ll end up third in the overall standings.
    Resi Stiegler was 11th to wrap up her slalom season.
    Schild had already secured the slalom title, having entered the race 395 points ahead of Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic, who was sixth Saturday.
    In the overall chase, Schild entered the race with a 70-point cushion over Hosp, with Mancuso barely in contention mathematically. Hosp’s 100 points for the win now give her a 30-point lead on Schild heading into the season-ending giant slalom on Sunday.

LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland — Austrian Nicole Hosp won the World Cup Finals slalom Saturday to wrest the overall standings lead from teammate Marlies Schild, who hiked twice in the second run and failed to score points.
    American Julia Mancuso was 16th. Only the top 15 score points at World Cup Finals, meaning Mancuso’s battle for the overall is finished. She’ll end up third in the overall standings.
    Resi Stiegler was 11th to wrap up her slalom season while Kaylin Richardson did not finish her first run.
    “I heard from my trainer that Marlies had made a mistake but I just concentrated on skiing well and not slowing down,” Hosp said. “I’m glad it worked.”
    Schild had already secured the slalom title, having entered the race 395 points ahead of Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic, who was sixth Saturday.
    In the overall chase, Schild entered the race with a 70-point cushion over Hosp, with Mancuso barely in contention mathematically. Hosp’s 100 points for the win now give her a 30-point lead on Schild heading into the season-ending giant slalom on Sunday.
    Hosp now leads the overall competition with 1,472 points. Hosp won the gold medal in the giant slalom at last month’s World Championships in Are, Sweden.
    “Everything is now possible,” said Hosp, the Olympic slalom silver medalist. “I wasn’t calculating the points before my run, I just knew it was important to do well. Now the GS will be extremely important.”
    Mancuso, a solid contender in Sunday's giant slalom, has 1,332 points.
    “Entering the season, I wasn’t even thinking about the top three overall coming into it," Mancuso said. "People were always whispering here or there, ‘You’re an overall skier, what’s your chances of the overall?’ I was eighth last year so just moving up to be third is really cool and I’m excited about that.”
    Mancuso had hip surgery in the summer and started the season slowly before picking up steam in January.“ I’ve got plenty of years to hopefully step it up at the beginning of the season so I don’t have to fight as hard at the end of the year," Mancuso said.
    U.S. tech coach Chris Knight said the lack of slalom training — while further honing her talents elsewhere — hurt, but she’s young and resilient and highly competitive, all of which are cause for optimism.
    “Actually, Julia skied better than she did a week ago in Zwiesel [Germany, where she was 24th in a slalom]. Her second run was pretty good, but she’d left so much room from the first run [2.7 seconds out] and couldn’t make it up. It’s really just a lack of training; this summer, she’ll have more time to work on her slalom — don’t forget she lost last summer because of the hip surgery.”
    Hosp, who led after the opening run, won with a combined time of 1 minute, 45.67 seconds. Olympic champion Anja Paerson of Sweden was second in 1:45.95, while Veronika Zuzulova of Slovakia was third in 1:47.02.
    Schild, who was second behind Hosp after the opening run, skied cautiously on the upper part of the second run. She slipped and missed a gate and then climbed back to rerun it, but again lost her footing and missed another gate. Hiking a second time to rerun that gate was too costly and Schild finished out of the points in 19th.
    “I tried,” Schild said. “It’s OK. That’s life.”
    Schild, who had already clinched the World Cup slalom title by winning seven-of-eight slalom races so far this season, had been looking to match Janica Kostelic’s record of eight slalom victories in 2000-01. The Croatian, who won all of hers in succession, sat out this season to deal with health issues.

Stiegler targets consistency
    Stiegler finished 12th in the first run and 11th in the race, with a clean top section in her second run.
    “The top I was a lot better,” Stiegler said. “I still made a mistake in the flush which kind of rattled me a little bit. I think I kind of held back from there.”
    Stiegler finishes the season as the top American in slalom, ranked 17th. She was hurt by four DNFs in the nine races.
    “My slalom season, I guess you could say I’m the fastest slalom skier that could have been, because I was definitely winning a lot of split times and could have won some races if I had made it to the finish,” she said. “But racing is racing and you’ve got to have two runs to be in the finish and win. I’m happy with the sections that I had, the races that I had. Next year I’ll just have to make it a little more consistent.”
    Knight said Stiegler had major mistakes at the top and bottom of her second run “and, really, I think she was focusing on getting to the finish and getting a result. It wasn’t her race; we’ve seen her do so much better but she’s tired. She and Kaylin have been doing a lot of speed [downhill, super G] this season, too, so they’re pretty fried at this point. It’s been a long season for both of them and this was Resi’s final World Cup, so I can understand her wanting to make sure she had a finish.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this report

THE SCOOP
By Hank McKee

Equipment
Women's slalom, Lenzerheide, Switzerland, March 17, 2007
Skier, skis/boots/bindings
1 Hosp, Volkl/Fischer/Marker
2 Paerson, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
3 Zuzulova, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
4 Poutiainen, Volkl/Tecnica/Marker
5 Ottosson, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
6 Zahrobska, Head/Head/Tyrolia
7 Loeseth, Volkl/Tecnica/Marker
8 DeLeymarie, Dynastar/Lange/Look
9 Borssen, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
10 Riesch, Head/Lange/Tyrolia

Women's slalom, Lenzerheide, Switzerland, March 17, 2007. … It is the 35th race of the World Cup season for the women with one race, the final GS, remaining to be contested. … It is the ninth of nine scheduled slaloms.
    It is the eighth career World Cup win for Nicole Hosp. … Her second in slalom, the previous at Mado
nna di Campiglio Dec. 17, 2003. … It is her third Cup win of the season. … She also won the World Championship GS. … Of her 11 Cup podiums this season four have come in March.
    It is the 74th career podium for Anja Paerson. … Her 34th in slalom. … It is her fourth Cup podium of the season, two in December and two at Lenzerheide in finals. … She also gained four medals at World Championships, gold in super G, combined and downhill, bronze in slalom.
    It is the fourth career World Cup podium for Veronika Zuzulova, all of them in slalom and all of them third place finishes. … Three are from this season the others at Kranjska Gora Jan. 7 and Sierra Nevada Feb. 25.
    It is the 16th time Resi Stiegler has been 11th or better in a World Cup race. … tenth time in slalom. … She scored in 11 races this season. … Julia Mancuso does not score points in 16th place by World Cup Finals rules. … She cannot win the overall title.
    Marlies Schild had long since cinched the slalom title. Nicole Hosp closes in second to finish 760-418. … Sarka Zahrobska (6th in race) is third at 405. … Therese Borssen (9th in race) is fourth at 389. … The top North American is Resi Stiegler USA in 17th at 141.
    Hosp takes the lead of the overall standings for the first time all season 1472-1442 for Schild. … Julia Mancuso is third at 1332 and Renate Goetschl (did not race) is fourth at 1300. … Anja Paerson moves past the idle Lindsey Kildow into fifth place. … Winning margin is .28. … Top two are with a second. … Nina Loeseth in 7th is exactly two seconds out. … Sweden is the only country with more than one skier in the top 10.

Lenzerheide women's World Cup slalom results

Did not finish 1st run:
STUHEC Ilka (SLO), CERESA Annalisa (ITA), RICHARDSON Kaylin L (USA), LEINONEN Sanni (FIN), MOELGG Manuela (ITA), PIETILAE-HOLMNER Maria (SWE), GERG Annemarie (GER), COSTAZZA Chiara (ITA)

Did not finish 2nd run:
JELUSIC Ana (CRO)

Women's World Cup slalom standings
(after 9 of 9 races)
1. Marlies Schild, Austria, 760.
2. Nicole Hosp, Austria, 418.
3. Sarka Zahrobska, Czech Republic, 405.
4. Therese Borssen, Sweden, 389.
5. Veronika Zuzulova, Slovakia, 344.
6. Tanja Poutiainen, Finland, 332.
7. Ana Jelusic, Croatia, 328.
8. Kathrin Zettel, Austria, 257.
9. Anna Ottosson, Sweden, 215.
10. Florine de Leymarie, France, 199.
11. Monika Bergmann-Schmuderer, Germany, 194.
12. Anja Paerson, Sweden, 188.
13. Chiara Costazza, Italy, 148.
(tie) Michaela Kirchgasser, Austria, 148.
15. Maria Pietilae-Holmner, Sweden, 144.
16. Annemarie Gerg, Germany, 142.
17. Resi Stiegler, United States, 141.
18. Vanessa Vidal, France, 116.
19. Manuela Moelgg, Italy, 114.
20. Nina Loeseth, Norway, 101.
21. Nicole Gius, Italy, 92.
22. Katarzyna Karasinska, Poland, 88.
23. Sanni Leinonen, Finland, 79.
24. Julia Mancuso, United States, 77.
25. Maria Riesch, Germany, 72.

Women's World Cup overall standings
(after
34 of 35 races)

1. Nicole Hosp, Austria, 1,472 points.
2. Marlies Schild, Austria, 1,442.
3. Julia Mancuso, United States, 1,332.
4. Renate Goetschl, Austria, 1,300.
5. Anja Paerson, Sweden, 885.
6. Lindsey Kildow, United States, 808.
7. Tanja Poutiainen, Finland, 738.
8. Michaela Kirchgasser, Austria, 597.
9. Sarka Zahrobska, Czech Republic, 593.
10. Kathrin Zettel, Austria, 568.
11. Ingrid Jacquemod, France, 562.
12. Elisabeth Goergl, Austria, 539.
13. Andrea Fischbacher, Austria, 468.
14. Maria Riesch, Germany, 461.
15. Emily Brydon, Canada, 414.
16. Anna Ottosson, Sweden, 413.
(tie) Alexandra Meissnitzer, Austria, 413.
18. Therese Borssen, Sweden, 407.
19. Veronika Zuzulova, Slovakia, 383.
20. Kelly Vanderbeek, Canada, 367.