Feuz the fan pushes Miller the hero into second in Val Gardena Super G
A couple of weeks ago Bode Miller won in Beaver Creek with a young Swiss racer in second. Beat Feuz thought it was pretty cool to be number two to his hero. Feuz used to watch Miller racing and think that his ski racing style was cool. Talking to the media after winning the Super G in Val Gardena, Feuz was delighted to have beaten his hero. Miller took a well deserved second place with Kjetil Jansrud taking third ahead of his compatriot Aksel Lund Svindal with late starter Max Franz taking fifth.
Miller was an early starter and took the lead off Kjetil Jansrud. As the two stood in the winner’s enclosure they both agreed that they did not think that their times would stay good until the end. Yet the longer the race went on and more of the top seeds failed to better their times, so too did the two begin to feel that they would stay there. When Aksel Lund Svindal came down and went into third, a delighted Rainer Salzgeber, the Racing Manager from Head, gave a clenched fist of joy: He had the first four racers in the race at the moment.
The Saslong is notorious for the effect that the weather has on the race. The course may have been lowered 250 metres due to the high winds at the start but the course meanders down through the trees and light is an issue. Miller spoke after the race of the light may have been slightly better but he conceded the better man had won on the day.
With only Svindal from the top seeds troubling the leaderboard, this was a race for the early starters and then, as has become the norm in Val Gardena, the later numbers have thrown down a run to put in great results. Just as the podium was getting comfortable, Max Franz popped one in to take fifth – the best result from the Austrians.
Feuz did not expect too much from the race: “I have done nothing in the training runs and was hearing the results of other racers losing time all the way down the course,” he explained afterwards, “yet my coach just said it was OK to attack. This is what I did all the way down.”
Many racers tried this philosophy as well, including Didier Cuche, yet as soon as you got off the line, the finish suddenly was a long way off as you scrubbed off all your speed. Cuche would fall down to 19th at the end of the race.
With the early starters packing the leading positions after the top seeds had been and gone, many were feeling that the results would stand as they were: Miller leading Jansrud and Svindal with Keppler in fourth. While many of the racers would have hoped that the snow would be slightly harder and more compact, these were the conditions. Add the changing light to equation and uneven bumps, the light was a crucial ingredient. Many a racer came through the finish with a shrug of the shoulders and a hand brushing away his feelings in disappointment. Still Max Franz started 54 and took 5th and Andreas Romar from Finland scored his best ever World Cup result with 7th from a start number of 40. Joachim Puchner (3), Mario Scheiber (4) and Jan Hudec (25) joint with Klaus Kroell (15) rounded out the top 10.
So after three racers and the third different winner of the Super G World Cup, Svindal still leads the Super G World Cup with Feuz up to second and Cuche third, Miller fourth and Beaver Creek winner Sandro Viletta in fifth.
With none of his family watching in the resort "as I have never done well here," Feuz hopes that despite never having raced in Bormio, they will still come to watch him there!
