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Friday,
02.02.2001
St
Anton, Women’s Combined
First gold medal for Martina Ertl
The favorites are suffering here in
St Anton where another outsider conquered
a world title in the women’s
Combined event.
It's with an surprising success of
Germany’s Martina Ertl that this
dramatic competition ended on Friday
in that event which has been dominated
by Austria Renate Goetschl and Croatia's
Janica Kostelic in past seasons.
Both skiers were still the main contender
after the morning downhill won by
a very aggressive Kirsten Clark. The
American beat Goetschl by a few hundredths
of a second but her weakness in slalom
prevented her to fight for a medal
in the slalom.
But they did not finish the difficult
slalom which allowed Martina to clinch
her first major success in her career
after having won a series of silver
and bronze medals.
She beat by over two and a half second
Austria’s shooting start Christine
Sponring, only 17, and by three seconds
Italy’s Karen Putzer.
It's a superb comeback that the German's
skier achieved at this occasion only
a month after she tore the inside
ligament of her right knee during
her bad crash in the giant slalom
at Austria’s Semmering.
The big losers in this second ladies’
event here at St Anton are Janica
Kostelic, Renate Goetschl, and America’s
Caroline Lalive, who went on the podium
at Flachau last January.
Janica, in great shape after the downhill
in which she lost less then a second
and a half on Goetschl, fell at the
beginning of the slalom, in skiing
too aggressively in the first gates.
Renate, on her side had a solid run
in the downhill in which she clocked
the second best time before taking
the lead of the intermediate rankings
after the first leg of the slalom.
Yet, as so often in the past, the
Austrian took too many risks in the
second run to defend her chances.
She straddled a gate at the end of
the race when she was still close
to win her second tittle in the discipline
after the one won in 1997. Caroline
Lalive too skied out in the second
run.
Martina Ertl had a hard time to understand
what was happening to her. A strong
leader in the Overall World Cup standings
until her injury at a knee a month
ago at Semmering, the 28-year-old
the German worked out hard to come
back in time for this big event.
In 1999, no German skier reached the
podium at Vail but here Hilde Gerg
has already won a bronze in Super-G
on Monday.
“This is amazing, I never thought
this could happened – I was so
happy and relaxed coming here, that’s
for sure why I did so well today”
she explained.
“I wanted to be here and I was
already glad I could compete today.
I just attack at my best in both races,
I had nothing to lose. I hit an almost
perfect second run in the slalom.”
“This means a lot to me –
I have been fighting hard for this
for a long time.”
It’s also quite amazing to remember
that Ertl could not qualify for the
second runs in the first slaloms of
the 1999/2000 season because she was
not used to compete with the new short
skis!
Last October she celebrated a great
comeback at Soelden as she won the
first GS of the winter coming back
from 17th to 1st place. Then she accumulated
a series of top-results including
two second places in slalom in North
America. She would certainly have
kept her the lead in the Overall World
Cup standings without her injury from
Semmering.
The next women’s event on the
program is the downhill on Tuesday.
Renate Goetschl, the defending World
Champion, will try to celebrate a
superb revenge on that occasion. But
her confidence may have faded now
Among the other favorites, Switzerland’s
Corinne Rey-Bellet and France’s
Régine Cavangnoud as well as
Italy’s Isolde Kostner and US
Megan Gerety, quite fast in training.
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