L a t e s t  n e w s ..... Vonn stuns slalom specialists to win in Levi with Pieitiae Holmer second and Maria Riesch in third.... Grange wins mens race from Miller and Kostelic .... Chemmy Alcott suffers clean break of ankle in training in North America, expected to be out till New Year .... Lindsey Vonn injures left knee in training Super G in Copper Mountain, no lay off details announced

'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams' (Eleanor Roosevelt).

Downhill Training:  After Lake Louise the guys have now moved to Beaver Creek in the States.  Much has been written about the amount of chat Miller and Walchhofer have been doing and now it is time for both to let the skis do the talking.  In time people will look and see that Miller did not cover himself in glory and the Walchhofer was not on the podium either.  Results talk and at the moment Fritz Strobl leads the standings.

First training run was won by Austrian nearly man, and featured in issue 15 of Racer Ready, Christoph Gruber.  With cold conditions (-14 at the start and -8 at the finish), the clear conditions saw Gruber take the training run spoils a tenth ahead of Bjarne Solbakken and Fritz Strobl.  Current overall World Cup Leader Aksel Lund Svindal took fourth ahead of Michael Walchhofer.  Miller finished 42,Maier 47 and Rahlves, who has hinted that this season may be his last, equal 9th.

Finlay Mickel adjusted to the cold conditions and took a gentle first run knowing that it did not count for anything apart from learning the course.  Mickel has never scored points on the Birds of Prey course and will be looking to put this right this week.  Wednesday will see a second training run before a Super G on Thursday and the race on Friday.  The weekend will see a Giant Slalom and then the week will finish with a Slalom.