Aksel Lund Svindal served notice on the rest of the field with another commanding win in the Super G World Cup at Lake Louise. While many other racers spent the evening watching his run from the Downhill, the big Norwegian set the DVD up to watch his race from last year. This was another master class from the Norwegian and his winning margin over Frenchman Adrien Theaux was 0.86second with Joachim Puchner taking third and Ted Ligety fourth. Svindal admitted after the race that you have to take every opportunity to win a World Cup race as you never know when there will be another chance. Yet this was a commanding win and one that will make the rest of the stand up.
It was another good day at the office for Ted Ligety as Mt Giant Slalom made a whistle stop trip to Lake Louise and ended up with a fantastic fourth place. The American did not take part in any of the Downhill training runs, preferring to stay down in America training in preparation for the Giant Slalom race in Beaver Creek next weekend. Ligety had flown in the night before the race yet felt his run “was definitely better than I thought it would be. I skied really well at the top. The bottom half I just really wasn't looking out for those rolls and was getting thrown all over the place. If the race had ended a little higher I might have done better.” This was Ligety's second best career result in Super G on the World Cup. It took until Joachim Puchner from Austria to come down before Ligety was knocked off the top spot and then by a mere one hundredth of a second.
With the fresh snow starting to soften things up and the course rutting up, many of the racers failed to live up to their challenge and trailed in behind Puchner. Then just as had happened in the Downhill the previous day, the Austrian's time was beaten by Adrien Theaux from France. Theaux had hardly had time to take his helmet off before Svindal was on course and posting fast split times at the top. The lead was growing all the way down as the Norwegian carved a clean and tight line. This was how Super G was supposed to be skied.
This was Svindal's 18th World Cup win of his career and the HEAD World Cup rebel described his run afterwards as “Sometimes you are just flying down the hill. Skiing is always fun and on days like this it is unreal!” He added, "If things go well, then you have to enjoy it. This is not natural. I was quick in training, luckily I was also in the race," the two-time overall World Cup winner said after his double victory. He may have lost some time from the last split to the finish but he had some much in reserve, Theaux and the rest of the field in the finish could only just stand and marvel at the performance.
Five wins Svindal now has in Lake Louise and this matches the Norwegian record for the most wins in a single venue by the great Lasse Kjus. Kjus scored his wins in Kitzbuehel. While Svindal can sit back and enjoy the plaudits, this is the first season in twenty years that no Austrian or Swiss racer has not won one of the first four races of the World Cup season. The Austrians came close with Max Franz in the downhill and then Puchner in the Super G here in Lake Louise, ye the season just gets worse and worse for the Swiss: Patrick Kueng was their best racer in tenth and the Carlo Janka, who won the overall only back in 2010, could not manage anything better than 40th.
The World Cup speed season is up and running. Svindal has thrown his cards on the table and now the circus moves on to Beaver Creek.
Britain's TJ Baldwin failed to finish.
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