Val d’Isère, men’s downhill

Stephan Eberharter starts new series of triumphs

Austria’s Stephan Eberharter behaves as one of the most implacable “racing machines” on the World Cup Tour – on Saturday, the 33-year-old Tyrolian became the first champion to win the “classical” OK downhill in Val d’Isère in two consecutive years. It’s also his third win this season in that event – his fifth in total. So far only the 1976 Olympic Champion “Kaiser” Franz Klammer achieved such impressive season-starts in downhill at the beginning of his glorious career. The Austrian celebrated a total of twenty-five major wins from 1973 to 1984.

The way “Steff” crushed his rivals on the treacherous French course is bad news for the other contenders who might well face the same hard days as a year ago, when Eberharter accumulated victories on all the traditional slopes including Wengen and Kitzbühel..
After an almost perfect cruise down the superb “Oreiller-Killy” piste covered with hard and “aggressive” snow, the 2002 Overall World Cup Champion beat by 69/100 of a second his team-mate Klaus Kroell who reached his first World Cup podium ever.
Andreas Schifferer, the 1998 downhill World Cup Champion, was 3rd at 94/100 and experts as Kjetil Aamodt, 5th, lost 1,42 seconds – almost an abyss in this sport! It’s even worse for the 2002 Olympic Champion Fritz Strobl, 20th at 2,46 seconds.

America’s Bode Miller found out how much he still can improve on a typical alpine downhill – he came in 19th, 2,44 seconds behind Eberharter without having the feeling to have made major mistakes!

Seven out of eight!

Since his first success here twelve months ago, Stephan dominated the World Cup Circuit as only a few skiers before him. Within a year, he won fourteen races and seven out of the last eight World Cup downhills!
Only the Legendary “Klammer-Express” did better in his greatest seasons – such as winning eight out of nine downhills races in 1975!

Not only is Eberharter unbeaten in the last four World Cup downhills -- he won the final one held in Altenmark at the end of last season - but the World Cup overall champion also has a fine record in Val d’Isère. Last year, the Austrian had finally made it in the French resort, winning two of the three races held there, a downhill and a Super-G. But the giant slalom Olympic champion has four other podium finishes in Val d'Isère behind him, the first one in 1997.

But such kinds of facts don’t excite him at all. "I don't care about statistics, only the press is interest by them" he said after the race. “I prefer to look ahead and remain focused on my form and my momentum. What really matters to me is to enjoy myself while racing. I feel completely relaxed this season, I have nothing to prove after my fantastic past winter."
"I'm not looking to do any better than last year. To do as well would be great already" he added.

A week ago, Stephan Eberharter gave his opponents false hopes in Beaver Creek by
finishing a disappointing 15th in a Super-G after three successive victories. "I'm a human being, I sometimes also make mistakes" said the Austrian who never wants to consider himself as a favorite at the start of a race. “Things looks sometime easy when you reach a certain perfection but I can tell you that there is a lot of work behind it. All the pieces of the puzzle need to be put together - from the fast skis to the information about the course and the concentration. Wins are never granted! If you feel too confident, it’s easy to make a mistake. Today I had to fight hard on the rough course to tame it and I was lucky that I had no major problems”

Gold at St Moritz

Last season Stephan won ten World Cup race in four months – more is at reach for him now including snatching his second Overall Crystal Globe in the middle of the season, before the 2003 FIS World Championships planned in St Moritz, Switzerland.
It would help him to approach them with the same conviction as the past Olympics which brought him a total of three medals in each metal : Bronze in downhill, Silver in Super-G and (an unexpected) Gold in giant slalom.
In Switzerland, his main goal is to win the downhill as he did last year because it’s the only big race which is missing in his impressive lists of triumphs.
In 1991, he became – at only 20 - World Champion in Super-G and Combined. “A fourth gold medal would be nice, especially if it would happen in downhill, the most prestigious events of our sport” he said last fall during a round-table discussion with a group of selected journalists invited to meet him above his beloved valley of Ziller. “But any win is nice, there are many other good skiers at the start and I respect them all”.

In Sunday’s giant slalom, Stephan will try to stay on his high wave – but it will be hard against specialists who trained it more intensively that him recently. Switzerland’s Michael von Grünigen, a double winner here and the leader in the GS World Cup standing should ne the skier to beat along France’s Frederic Covili, 2nd last year in that race won by America’s Bode Miller. The skier from New Hampshire is ready to confirm his form in the technical events after his disappointing failure in Park City. He achieved quite a promising campaign in the speed events in the last three weeks but now even more serious business is beginning for him here.