Vail—Beaver Creek


Wiberg Back on the Podium
Women's DH Combined: Vail, Colorado

Wiberg
Wiberg the Winner
February 5, 1999
The combined is ski racing's crossover discipline. It demonstrates skiing's best all-around racers, so it was appropriate that one of women's skiing's best champions took the top spot on the podium Friday.

Sweden's Pernilla Wiberg has done it all in skiing, winning Olympic medals, World Championships and World Cup titles. She came to Vail a skier coming off an injury-riddled 1998 season. Wiberg was grace under pressure, winning the women's combined gold medal by just .15 seconds over Austria's Renate Goetschl. France's Florence Masnada was 3rd at .45 seconds back.

"All my medals are special, but this one is very special. I had a lot of pressure on myself..."
— Pernilla Wiberg (SWE)

"All my medals are special, but this one is very special. I had a lot of pressure on myself. After the super-G, I was disappointed with my result. I'm 28 years old, so I shouldn't get nervous, but there was a lot of pressure on me and I could feel it," said Wiberg, winner of the combined gold at the 1996 Worlds.

If she was nervous, it didn't show on the snow. She was a solid sixth in the opening downhill leg, just 1.44 seconds off Goetschl's fastest time. In the first of two slalom runs, Wiberg finished 5th and moved quietly into 5th overall going into the final slalom. Wiberg, the overall World Cup champion in 1997 and one of the few racers to win World Cup races in all disciplines, was confident she could win.

"I always do better coming from behind. I always push myself harder," she said. Masnada won the first slalom and finished 2nd in the final, but Wiberg was flawless, taking the second round and winning the overall combined title.

For Wiberg, the road back to Vail was a long way. A double-winner here in 1997, she struggled through the 1998 season, riddled with injuries. While competing in Nagano, her nagging injuries almost made her quit skiing.

"I was having so many injuries. I was feeling down," said Wiberg, who's had 10 surgeries in her skiing career. After the Winter Games, the persistent pain prompted a visit to Vail's renowned Steadman-Hawkins Clinic, where Dr. Richard Steadman operated on Wiberg's knee.

"He said I would be fine. That meant a lot to me," she said. "You always have to believe you can win the gold. I really had to give it my best on the second run."

In the opening downhill, Aspen's Katie Monahan had the strongest U.S. run, finishing. Jonna Mendes was 14th and Caroline Lalive was 22nd. Lalive crashed out of the first leg while Monahan ended up 11th overall and Mendes posted the U.S. women's team's best results so far in the 1999 Worlds with 10th.

"Because I'm having fun, I just went as fast as I could. I don't have a lot of expectations for myself in this race," said Mendes after the race. "I don't race a lot of slalom and it looked really straight, so I wasn't sure how I would do."

The steep International course took out its fair share of victims. Out of 28 starters, only 15 survived the three runs. Germany's Martina Ertl and Austria's Brigitte Obermoser went down in spills in the second slalom run while Czech Republic's Lucie Hrstkova walked away from a spectacular crash in the downhill leg.

Goetschl secured Austria's sixth medal of these worlds. Her strong downhill run gave the speed specialist the cushion she needed to make it through the slalom runs and onto the podium. She was 8th in the first slalom and 6th in the second.

"It was a great run for me in the downhill. I skied good in the slalom for me. I'm very happy," said Goetschl, taking her second silver in two events. "I'm excited for the downhill."

The competitors' minds were already looking ahead to Sunday's downhill. The women will train Saturday on the International downhill course while the men's speed demons hit Beaver Creek's Birds of Prey for the downhill.

Austrians Dominate First Leg
Women's DH Combined: Vail, Colorado

February 5, 1999
The Austrians continued their strong performance during the 1999 World Alpine Ski Championships Friday in the first leg of the women's combined.

The women's Austrian team holds the top-3 positions after the combined downhill run Friday morning, with Renate Goetschl posting the fastest time at 1 minute, 33.66 seconds. Teammates Stefanie Schuster and Michaela Dorfmeister paced to 2nd and 3rd.

The women race two slalom runs later today, with the first at 1pm, followed by a second at 2:30pm. The times of all three runs are combined to determine the winner.

Aspen's Katie Monahan had the strongest US run, finishing 11th in the downhill leg at 1:35.84. Jonna Mendes was 14th at 1:36.11 and Caroline Lalive was 22nd at 1:37.67.

The combined is a hybrid event only held during the World Championships and the Olympics.

Meanwhile, the men's final day of downhill training was cancelled Friday due to new snow on the course. It snowed about six inches, enough to prompt officials to cancel the run. The men are scheduled to tackle the Birds of Prey downhill course at Beaver Creek at 11am Saturday.

— Andrew Hood, Mountain Zone Correspondent

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