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At Madonna
di Campiglio, where a slalom scheduled in Slovenia’s
Kranjska Gora took place, the Austrian team celebrated
it’s first clean sweep in the Italian 3-Tre “Classic”
since 1967. Mario Matt won his first slalom of the season
ahead of Heinz Schilchegger and Rainer Schoenfelder.
Norway’s Hans-Petter Buraas skied out in the second
run after clocking the fastest time in the morning.
Only another Austrian, Thomas Sykora, celebrated a success
on the demanding “Miramonti” slope on which
all the best gates-specialists dream to win once. A
nice crowd attended the competition in the hope to see
a Italian doing well after the strong results of the
“Squadra Azzurra” at Val d’Isère.
In fact Giorgio Rocca was skiing very well that day,
yet he straddled one of the last gates of the first
run. He would have clocked the 4th best time in that
run. At least, four of his teammates finished among
the top-27 yet beyond 20th position.
Quite remarkable the achievement of Great Britain’s
Alain Baxter, who scored the best ever slalom result
for a British skier was he came in 8th. It’s the
third time in a row that he conquered some World Cup
points this season.
In Bormio, Fredrik Nyberg was again very close to win
a giant slalom – his first since November 1996.
A winner earlier this month in a Super-G held in Colorado’s
Beaver Creek, Nyberg scored less brilliant results in
GS after reaching the podium at Soelden.
“Fredy” was not to disturbed by the fog which
floated over the icy and demanding slope in the morning
and set the fastest time ahead of two top-guns, the
1999 GS World Champion Lasse Kjus and the 1998 Olympic
Champion Hermann Maier.
The Austrian, banned for a race at Val d’Isère,
could finally start in Italy after the appeal commission
of the FIS changed the decision made by the race-jury
at Val d’Isère where Hermann was disqualified
before the first run for finishing his course-inspection
two minutes after the deadline.
The sun shined again in the afternoon over the “Stella
Alpina” run at Bormio but it didn’t help the
favorites. Skiers attacking from the back managed to
beat most of them to finish among the top-10.
Austria’s Christoph Gruber, 2nd behind Nyberg in
the Super-G at Beaver Creek, was a strong 7th in the
first tun before taking the lead after his aggressive
second run.
Nobody could beat his total time. The 24-year-old Tyrolian
surprisingly won the last competition prior to Christmas
ahead of America’s Eric Schlopy – quite amazing
for a skier who didn’t enter the last three GS
races!
Nyberg, who made several mistakes on the slick course,
was just happy to remain 3rd ahead of Switzerland Michael
von Grünigen, the leader in the GS World cup standings.
Kjus moved down to 8th place and Maier to a far 10th
– his worse in GS since 1997. The skier from Flachau
declared himself tired after the race – all the
tension which surrounded him in the last days certainly
cost him much energy. He lost almost two seconds on
the fastest skier of the second run, his teammate Andreas
Schifferer.
Alberto Tomba in person was one of the fore-runners
of this race. The triple Olympic Champion skied down
the slope with a camera fixed on his head.
At the arrival, he met his former rival, Hermann Maier.
Both were happy to share some moments together yet Tomba
doesn’t regret ski racing. “I have a lot of
interesting activities now and I can sleep longer than
in the past, when I was competing” the Italian
said. “I don’t look back but forward –
I’ll try to help the Italian team to find back
its momentum.”
So everybody was glad to take a long break. The next
men’s races are scheduled for the first week-end
in January in France, at Les Arcs, above Bourg-St Maurice.
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