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Schild in a class of her own

Marlies Schild gave the rest of the girls Slalom field a lesson in slalom racing. There is no other way of describing how she utterly killed the race with two devastating runs that gave her the fastest time on each run. Such was the gulf in class between her and the rest of the field; second placed Tanja Poutiainen was almost two seconds back (1.87) with Kathrin Zettel in third (2.19 back).

The hard work that had been put in to get the race run after all the new snow was evident and while some of the later runners started during a light snow fall for the first run, the course held up well despite a fall away gate as you came on the to steep pitch throwing a lot of racers off their rhythm. The Courchevel Stade is well known to many British racers with the Scottish Championships happening there at the end of each season, the long run on the flat section to the finish is a place where racers still have to work their skis to earn good times.

Between the two runs, it was announced that Maria Hoefl-Riesch had injured her knee yet they would test it between the runs to see if she would do the second run. Riesch is a fighter and it was not surprise that as she was sitting in second place after the first run, that she entered the start for the second run. At this stage of the race, Poutiainen was leading with Zettel in second and Kirchgasser in third. Although she looked tentative as she came on to the steep, a hip slide was the end of her day and she will now rest until Lienz.

With Vonn having an uncharacteristic DNF and Julia Mancuso not starting due to food poisoning, Schild almost had the hill to herself. Zettel’s charge up the field in the second run was good but even her time was blown away by Schild. With Vonn dominating the speed events and Schild the Slalom, ski racing on the women’s side of things is in need of competition if it is to have the same appeal as the men’s races. This is no disrespect to the racers, more a compliment to the standard of Vonn and Schild.

Anna Goodman (CAN) and Lena Duerr (GER) both used the opportunity of clean second runs to score some big World Cup points with 11^th and 8^th respectively. Having started 46 and 54, both racers should jump back in to the all important top 30 for the next race. In all 8 racers from outside the top 30 starters made results on the second run, Duerr the highest starter to make the second run.

Next stop for the women’s tour is Lienz for a Giant Slalom and Slalom.