By Brian S. Peterson
Herald Sports Editor
Maybe it was the sullen winter sky that final day. Or that the home-team hopefuls quietly would disappear into the snow and haze. Or, maybe, it was the reality that this thing was all over.
Regardless, there was a finality besides the obvious – almost a sense of somberness – for the home team in the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.
Alpine ski racing’s biggest event came to a close in the cold and snow Sunday at Beaver Creek – much the way the championships got off the ground two weeks earlier.
But there was a difference.
After finishing fourth in the women’s downhill training event that unofficially kicked off the worlds Feb. 2, hometown favorite Lindsey Vonn of nearby Vail appeared loose, almost jovial, at the finish line after her run, which turned out to be the fourth-fastest of the day. And why not? It was a decent run, and this wasn’t even the beginning of what many expected would be a stellar two weeks for Vonn and her American teammates.
But that vibe changed as quickly as the weather. After steady snowfall the first couple days – to the point where several training sessions were postponed and even cancelled – temps rose considerably and, by the end of the first week, had created rugged, icy conditions for skiers. It was a challenging course anyway, and that top U.S. hopefuls Vonn, Bode Miller and Ted Ligety were coming off injuries ...
Vonn, especially, was impacted. Although coming back from two major knee surgeries, she won three of four World Cup races leading up to worlds to set the women’s record for World Cup racing victories. And she finished third in the women’s super-G – the first event of worlds on Tuesday, Feb. 3.
She also was expected to medal – if not win – in the downhill, but finished fifth on Feb. 6.
She might have been best off leaving it at that. But being the competitor that she is, she announced she would compete in the Alpine combined and giant slalom, even though she hadn’t skied competitively in either in more than two years.
As the Alpine combined features a downhill portion, there was hope for Vonn. But any chance of medaling ended when she failed to finish the slalom portion, and she broke down in tears soon after. She had worked brutally hard to get her knee back into ski-racing shape, and up to that point, all was good. But the knee started to give her problems on the tough course during the combined, which had to be like thinking you have a sickness licked, only to have it come back. Add the pressure of those lofty pre-worlds expectations and skiing in her hometown, and it was just too much.
“The ice this morning took a toll on my knee,” she said in a press conference after the combined. “I really tried hard today, but it hurt a lot.”
Give Vonn a lot of credit. It would have been easy to call it quits after the combined, what with her knee and the fact that the giant slalom really isn’t her thing. But she pulled herself together and turned her attention to the giant slalom three days later. And she would ski a respectable race, finishing 14th, 3.22 seconds behind winner and giant slalom standout and regular Anna Fenninger.
“It’s nice to be back in the technical disciplines again,” Vonn told the media after Thursday’s race, indicating that she planned to add the giant slalom moving forward. “While it may not have been my best performance, I’m still taking away a lot of positives from it. I do a lot of speed, but I need technical training as well.”
Miller, not far removed from back surgery, crashed in the super-G on just the second day of competition and was done for the championships – and may be done for good. But America’s two other big guns – Ligety and Mikaela Shiffrin – helped the U.S. salvage something, with Ligety winning a gold and a bronze in the men’s giant slalom and combined, respectively, and Shiffrin a gold in the women’s slalom.
Travis Ganong added a silver in the downhill for the U.S. It was the only event in which the U.S. was in serious contention for two medals, an indication that depth may be an issue for the U.S. Steve Nyman led early in the competition and still was in position to medal before Ganong’s late run knocked him to fourth.
Yes, the five medals were the second-most ever won by a U.S. team in the worlds. But you had to think that when Tiger Shaw, U.S. Ski Association president and CEO, addressed the media at the championships’ opening press conference Feb. 2, he was expecting more.
“Expectations are high,” Shaw said then.
Still, he also was looking beyond Beaver Creek and at the bigger picture regarding American competitive Alpine skiing. And with that apparent lack of depth for the U.S., at least at these championships, that could be crucial as U.S. Alpine skiing moves forward.
“We come into the world championships with one of the strongest teams ever,” he said in that opening press conference. “That will make a difference. And hopefully it will make a difference in the pipeline ... Hopefully the younger people will say, ‘I want to be like one of (these) athletes.’”
Along those lines, the championships made a point to promote the event with schoolkids and youths in general, who were out in force, at least early in the championships. And the event reportedly reached the biggest national TV audience ever for skiing outside the Olympics.
“For sure, there were moments in these championships where young fans in the stands or watching on television were motivated to get involved in ski racing after seeing our U.S. Ski Team stars achieve medals in dramatic fashion,” Shaw said in the closing news conference.
The USSA celebrated the final weekend of the championships with USSA National Club Day, with the idea being for ski racing clubs around the country to use it as a platform to promote ski racing. Gold medal performances by Ligety and Shiffrin on Friday and Saturday, respectively, likely helped the cause, especially for clubs that had traveled to Beaver Creek – and there were more than a few.
“I know how inspired I was with Ted’s win, and hopefully, kids are feeling that way about my race,” Shiffrin, a kid herself at 19, told the media after her win. “I hope kids in the clubs around the country realize it is possible to get here – no matter how far away it may seem.”
bpeterson@durangoherald.com
