World juniors: Beat goes on with super G gold

Switzerland’s Beat Feuz punctuated a tremendous week at the FIS 2007 World Junior Ski Championships, winning his fourth medal of the event by taking gold Sunday in the super G.
ZAUCHENSEE, Austria — Switzerland’s Beat Feuz punctuated a tremendous week at the FIS 2007 World Junior Ski Championships, winning his fourth medal of the event by taking gold Sunday in the super G.
    Two Austrians — Joachim Puchner in second and Bernhard Graf in third — rounded out the podium.
    Beat won the downhill and took gold in the paper combined while winning bronze in slalom.
    It was a tight race, with Feuz winning in 1 minute, 7.77 seconds, .08 in front of the silver medalist and .19 ahead of Graf.
    The struggles continued for the American men, who failed to land a finisher in the race. Travis Ganong was disqualified and two of his teammates did not finish. The U.S. squad failed to reach the podium at the games.
   For Canada, Travis Dawson was 26th, Benjamin Thomsen 27th, Philippe Crete Belzile 31st, Dustin Cook 39th and Tyler Nella 50th.

Slovenian Stuhec wins slalom
    In Flachau, Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia won the women’s slalom, with Germany’s Katharine Duerr second and Austria’s Simone Streng third. Stuhec won with a two-run time of 1 minute, 44.23 seconds, .07 better than Duerr and .56 ahead of Streng.   
    Kiley Staples was the top American in eighth. Sterling Grant was 15th, Megan McJames 19th, Lyndee Janowiak 34th, Katie Hartman 39th.

Tough week for U.S. team
    For the championships (men and women), Austria led the way with nine total medals, with Switzerland second (four) and Liechtenstein third (three). Austria also led the way with three golds.
    U.S. skiers claimed no medals and were part of a three-way tie — with Sweden and France — for sixth place overall in the team scoring.
    “We came to world juniors with some high expectations,” U.S. Competition Director Walt Evans said, “so this was a tough week. But [U.S. Alpine Director] Jesse Hunt was here and we saw some good skiing — Kiley and Sterling in the slalom, Tommy Ford as a young junior, as a couple of good examples — but we’ve already begun talking about what we need to do in regrouping.”

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