She and husband Thomas already gave each other their Valentine's Day gift - they flew home from Italy Monday so she could recharge her mental batteries and rest her fire-horse racing instincts for a week. And do her laundry.

Vonn won her fifth race of the season Saturday and, even after finishing 16th Sunday in super-G, still was in a tie for the points lead. With Bode Miller, also a Park City homeowner (among his other pieds a terre), leading the men, it marked the first time U.S. skiers have led both standings since 1983 when Phil Mahre and Tamara McKinney won the crystal globes as overall champion.

She misses just one race by grabbing some valuable down-time at home this week - a slalom Friday in Zagreb, Croatia. So, deadlocked with Nicole Hosp, the Austrian and defending overall champion, Vonn figures she'll lose some points in the short run - Hosp is the slalom leader, too -- but she'll make up for it a month from now as the season ends.

"The overall is going to come down to the last week," she said Saturday. Twelve races remain: three downhills, a super-G, two super combined events (downhill and one run of slalom in one day), three slaloms and two giant slaloms.

Regardless of who wins, and barring injury (Vonn -- then Lindsey Kildow -- missed the final month of the '07 season with a knee injury as she was among challengers for the overall), it'll be tight at the top.

After 27 of 39 women's races, Vonn and Hosp have 983 points apiece. Vonn is the runaway (ski-off?) leader in downhill with a 252-point margin over Austrian Renate Goetschl. In other words, with three DHs left, Vonn needs a fourth-place finish to clinch the title. She also leads the combined points and there are two combined events remaining; a discipline needs three competitions before a World Cup crown is awarded.

But World Cup titles aren't Vonn's main concern. Skiing well is.

"I figure if I'm skiing well, the podiums and victories -- and the titles, all of that stuff -- will take care of itself," she said. "I just want to ski my best every run, ski clean [i.e., no mistakes]. It's pretty basic, but if I ski my best and don't have any big mistakes, I should be okay."

Her victory Saturday -- the 12th of her increasingly brilliant career -- was her ninth in downhill. That tied her with childhood idol Picabo Street and Daron Rahlves for the U.S. mark. Her dozen victories are second on the alltime U.S. women's list behind McKinney.

When she's done letting her nerves unwrinkle this week, and letting her inner fires get re-banked, Vonn will head to Whistler Mountain, north of Vancouver and the Olympic alpine venue for the 2010 Winter Games. The women will have a downhill Feb. 22 and super combined, mixing a super-G and one run of slalom, on the 24th.

A look-back at the weekend in Sestriere, Italy:

Saturday (downhill) -- Racing on the men's Olympic course from 2006, but starting a bit lower on the hill, she walloped everyone. She had the fastest time in the last training run Friday and produced a winning time Saturday of 1:38.86. Canadian Kelly VanderBeek, better known for her super-G results, was second (1:39.48).

Vermonter Chelsea Marshall came out of the No. 40 start and snatched her first World Cup points, finishing an eye-opening eighth. Winter Sports School alum Julia Mancuso was 22nd.

"It was definitely bumpy in some turns, but I was pretty clean. You had to be clean - you couldn't make mistakes," Vonn said, "because there's no place to make up for a mistake...

"That's what makes it challenging -- you have to be on it all the way, glide well, make clean turn. You can't afford any mistake."

Added speed Coach Alex Hoedlmoser, noting her confidence, "Lindsey is pretty much unbeatable now. The only thing that could have beaten her here was herself."

Vonn took the overall points lead by three points over Hosp. At the 2006 Olympics, the women's speed races were in San Sicario. Vonn took a terrible beater in training, spent a night in the hospital and returned race, but didn't medal. Last year, she went back to San Sicario and won a super-G on that hill, helping purge any lingering bad memories.

Sunday (super-G) - Vonn got hit by a headwind up top and never had the same rhythm as 24 hours earlier. She finished 14th while Swiss skier Fabienne Suter and Austrian Andreas Fischbacher tied for the win -- the first for each -- with identical clockings of 1:21.06. Germany's Maria Riesch, one of Vonn's closest pals on the tour (friends since junior days, they spent Christmas at the Riesch home in Germany), was third in 1:21.30.

Hosp was 14th and moved into a tie with Vonn -- 18 points for 14th place, 15 for 16th, so they came into this week knotted at the top of the standings. While Vonn cools her jets, Hosp will be revving her engine Friday in Croatia, then making the long trek to Vancouver.

Manuso had the top U.S. result Sunday, finishing eighth in 1:21.90. Stacey Cook was 24th and Leanne Smith, the defending NorAm DH champion, finished 27th.

The post Vonn takes well-deserved respite appeared first on Park Record.

Feb. 12, 2010 will bring ski jump qualifying on the normal hill at Whistler Olympic Park - about two hours north of the city and overseen by Parkite John Aalberg - during the day. Opening Ceremonies will be that night at BC Park in Vancouver. And then 17 days of competition in 15 winter sports. (For full schedules and details, including the Paralympics, which have a 10-day lineup of events beginning March 12: www.vancouver2010.com )

(Has it really been six years since the 2002 five-ring circus, OWG XIX, came to town? The Sundance crush without the black trench coats?)

You can be sure athletes and coaches can sense the urgency of making every run, every jump, every training session count. That's as true for the snow sports (alpine, biathlon, cross-country, freestyle, jumping, Nordic combined or snowboarding) as it is for sliding (bobsled, luge, skeleton) or the various forms of skating (speed, short track and figure) or, of course, curling.

It wasn't always that way. Four-plus decades ago, when he was angling for a place in the 1964 Olympics, young Bill Marolt - and skiers named Kidd, Heuga, Saubert, Werner, among others - saw a different picture. There were only three alpine events: combined wouldn't be restored to the Olympics until 1988 in Calgary and super-G wouldn't exist for nearly two more decades. And the World Cup didn't exist, either.

"There were only the three events in alpine - slalom, GS and downhill," said Marolt, president and CEO of the Park City-based U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. And USSA stood for U.S. Ski Association; snowboard hadn't been concocted, either.

And one other big difference: there was no year-round U.S. Ski Team. That didn't happen for another year - until Bob Beattie was hired June 21, 1965 at the USSA convention in Spokane, Wash., as the first fulltime Ski Team coach for alpine. (Nordic eventually followed suit.)

Today, Marolt oversees a USSA realm that includes 10 able-bodied Olympic teams (plus women's ski jumping, which isn't on the menu for 2010) and four disabled squads. As he looks 24 months down the road, he likes what he sees from the various skiers and riders, from the veterans as well as the up-and-coming athletes.

But he's also cautious because there's a huge difference between today's success and the day after tomorrow's Olympic podium. And, as he noted, "Every other nation has upped the ante - and we need to keep improving, too."

One key element of the two-years-out snapshot is that U.S. skiers and snowboarders have won at least once in every sport where USSA fields a World Cup team. The qualifier, of course, is that there is no men's World Cup jumping team although Park City's Anders Johnson, a 2006 Olympian at 16, is competing this weekend in Liberec, Czech Republic. He was 15th last month in a Continental Cup jumping meet in Germany.

Parkite Lindsey Vonn is No. 1 in the World Cup downhill standings and No. 2 in the overall points. She's won three more races and has 10 victories in her career. Bode Miller, training on his own away from the Ski Team, has five wins and leads the men's overall standings after clinching the combined crown last weekend.

Park City Winter Sports School grads - and '06 Olympic champions - Ted Ligety and Julia Mancuso have produced a cluster of top-3s. Their futures remain bright and brighter, by all accounts. Marco Sullivan's first victory and another DH podium illustrate how it sometimes takes years to find that elusive success.

Factoid: a U.S. guy has been on the podium in every men's World Cup downhill this winter. Factoid II: it's not simply Vonn and Miller reaping all the podium performances - seven U.S. skiers have had a World Cup top-3 finish this season.

Park City's T.J. Lanning has one of four Europa Cup triumphs by U.S. alpine skiers and there have been a half-dozen other U.S. podiums on the meat-grinder circuit, which is so hyper-competitive.

In addition, Alaskan Kikkan Randall's high-voltage - and historic - cross-country sprint win before Christmas in Russia is the latest achievement by a resurgent x-c team. She's the first U.S. woman to accomplish that feat. Bill Demong, who's lived in Park City since 2002, is runner-up in the nordic combined World Cup world. His five podiums are a U.S. record for one season, and they include the third victory of his career.

Freestyle is showcasing a new Olympic discipline, ski cross, and Casey Puckett has a couple of podiums to go with his glittering X Games mark (third place last month but he's also a two-time SX winner at the ESPN X-travaganza). Daron Rahlves retired two years ago from World Cup alpine, but he's been bitten by the SX bug, and winning gold at the X Games will only fan his inner fires.

In moguls, three U.S. women have won (ex-Parkite Michelle Roark, Emiko Torito and Shelly Robertson, who conquered all in dual moguls last Saturday night at Deer Valley). World Cup newbies Pat Deneen and Kayla Snyderman podiumed in Lake Placid and Landon Gardner strung together three straight upsets in duals at DV before finishing second. Aerials remains a work in progress, as PC's Emily Cook said last week after finishing fourth at DV.

Snowboarding has been a U.S. strength (seven medals in Torino in '06, five in '02) and that continues. It's a big list of top riders. Included: Lindsey Jacobellis. Hannah Teter, who's back after a year away to rest a knee injury. Olympic champ Seth Wescott. Nate Holland, off a snowboard cross three-peat at the X Games. Steve Fisher. Even alpine podiums (Tyler Jewell and Adam Smith), which have been scarce in recent seasons.

Some things (i.e., the need leadership) never change. Today, perhaps they're articulated better, but they're time-honored necessities.

Reflecting on his competitive days, and his years as U.S. alpine director, Marolt said, "You look at the principles of management and leadership - that doesn't change very much. We had great leadership and camaraderies, and the team worked hard...

"As everything in life, individuals figure out to be better, how to train more effectively, how to compete more efficiently. It's that old adage about 'Stronger, bigger, faster.' Two years from now, we need to be fully prepared with the coaches and athletes working in a cohesive way."

The post Winter Olympics: two years to go appeared first on Park Record.

They saved the best for last at the Visa Freestyle International.

Some 8,500 high-energy spectators ignored low-teens c-c-c-cold Saturday night and got to watch a sooo-weeet series of dual moguls runs as the Visa weekend concluded at Deer Valley Resort. When the dust (and snowflakes) settled, veteran Shelly Robertson, who's in her ninth World Cup season, had her first World Cup triumph and Landon Gardner had his first podium.

From the U.S. Ski Team's perspective, it was a pleasant end to some 36 hours of qualifications and competition. And a tasty payback for the determination and long hours of training by Robertson and Gardner.

But those two performances merely capped the weekend, which also included the North American debut of World Cup ski cross - the newest Olympic ski event when the Vancouver Winter Games open in 24 months. Ski cross, a.k.a., "motocross on skis" with four athletes competing head-to-head (and sometimes on their head) in one hellacious run through banked turns, flats, rollers and carnage-causing terrain. Sharp elbows can be as mandatory as great balance on skis and a fast start.

Deer Valley course crews drew high praise from everyone for their continual battle to keep the courses in the best shape despite the storms of the past week, including one which dropped 16 inches of snow for Friday's tussles.

A look at the two nights and one mid-day program of thrills and spills on three different venues at Deer Valley, all of them ending in one spot where Champion, Solid Muldoon and White Owl trails converge above the Snow Park base lodge:

Friday (SX qualis during the day, aerials at night and light snow during aerials qualifying) - The SX event featured all skiers racing down the 1,065-meter course on Solid Muldoon to establish their qualifying time; the top 32 men and top 16 women advanced to the finals heats. One quick surprise: Park City's JJ Johnson and longtime SX star Zach Crist - two former U.S. Ski Team alpine racers - failed to make finals. Crist took a header in his run and never finished.

Among those moving forward, four-time alpine Olympian Casey Puckett and Daron Rahlves, a three-time Olympian and the most successful U.S. speed skier (nine downhill wins, three super-G victories and World Championships gold and silver medals); Rahlves also came to town as the winner of the recent X Games SX event.

At night, the snow had stopped and the in-run had glazed, so Cook, Jana Lindsey and Dylan Ferguson - the three Yanks to make finals - lowered their start point by about 10 feet to better control their approach to the kicker, i.e., launching pad. Cook was 11th in qualifying, but she stuck her full, double-full (three twists, two flips) final jump and held onto the lead until the last three skiers - winner Nina Li of China, ageless Aussie Jacqui Cooper - who used to train in the splash pool at Utah Olympic Park - and Shuang Cheng, another Chinese skier - pushed her off the podium.

But you couldn't tell from her smile that Cook had missed the podium. "It's always a work in progress. I'm always just working on the process, trying to make every jump better," she told reporters.

"I'm glad to be back in the mix. Last year was a pretty slow year. For me, it's all about consistency right now - being in the gate every week, completing the tricks that are going to be competitive every week, and putting in 100 percent every week," Cook said. Lindsey finished ninth.

In the men's competition, the top three skiers could have been covered with a lift ticket. Stanley Kravchuk of the Ukraine won with 226.85 points, followed by Russia's Vladimir Lebedev at 223.21 and Swiss aerialist Renato Ulrich (222.23).

Ferguson (179.98) was equally pleased after experiencing his first finals, i.e., being one of the top 12 in qualifying. As he waited to take his jump, he said he was thinking, "Land this jump, land this jump, land this jump." The lanky 19-year-old from north of Boston didn't connect, but he chose to focus on the positive rather than bumming because he missed his jump. After all, he had made his first finals. "This is a big step for me," he said.

Aerials Coach Matt Christensen was pleased with his three athletes who reached finals, disappointed in the men who blew an opportunity to do better. "The girls are pushing each other and that's good," he said.

Saturday (ski cross finals at midday, dual moguls at night) - A first victory for Canadian Davey Barr with Puckett runner-up, ahead of Swiss Michael Schmid and Rahlves fourth after a poor start. The women's contest went to Ophelie David of France, who retook the World Cup points lead from teammate Meryl Boulangeat, who went down in the final heat.

Barr said his only hope heading into the day was to be in the finals. When he got that far, he turned more crafty thankful, waited for someone to make a mistake and when Puckett and Schmid grazed each other, Barr skied past them for the victory.

"I had to be patient and see what was happening around me and make a move," Barr told a press conference.

Puckett, an ex-X Games SX champion who was second in a World Cup ski cross last month in France, said "Coming into today, I was thinking 'Michael Schmid and [reigning world champ] Tomas Kraus - How am I going to take these guys out?' I didn't even take into consideration what Davey was going to do and he snuck up in there and took off."

The dual moguls event saw Robertson, who is skiing the best of her career, take down Austrian Margarita Marbler in the final heat. The 28-year-old, nine-year Ski Team veteran changed her top jump going into the semifinal heat, survived the run and then nailed the finale.

She and Moguls Head Coach Scott Rawles concocted the winning formula. "Shelly's been chipping away for a long time and this is awesome," he said. "Her heli wasn't working, so I suggested the double-twister-spread. She tried it first in the semifinal and had trouble with it, so I asked what she wanted to do, and she said, 'I'm really going to execute it in the final'...and she did."

A beaming Robertson said, "I've been waiting for this for so long."

The International Ski Federation changed course rules this winter, mandating a longer moguls field in the middle of the run so the contest would be more about skiing the bumps than landing two gymnastic maneuvers. Robertson may have struggled in the air, but she dominated the land portion. "The course was amazing. I just loved the turns in the middle. They were so fun. They had a perfect rhythm," she said.

U.S. skiers behind Robertson in the finals included: Kayla Snyderman, Emiko Torito 11th and Heather McPhie 12th. "I just love duals," Snyderman said, "because you just go!"

Gardner, like Ferguson after the aerials competition, focused on the positive, not missing the win in his final heat with Canadian Vincent Marquis. Pat Deneen finished fourth, Jimmy Discoe was eighth, local favorite Nate Roberts ninth, Salt Lake City's Jay Bowman-Kirigin 12th and Holt Haga 13th.

Gardner had kayoed Canadian Warren Tanner, Olympic moguls and current duals world champion Dale Begg-Smith, the Canadian who skis for Australia, and then third-ranked Alexandre Bilodeau in semis to reach the final heat.

"I know my skills and I know this course really well, so I knew I could really put it down and that's what I did. I was fueled by a little bit of the crowd and the powder," he said.

"First podium, I'm really excited. I definitely wish I could have been a little bit higher on the podium but you know what, I'm just going to enjoy second place." Good thought - after all, there were 40-plus others who would have loved to make the championship round.

The post Flying high appeared first on Park Record.

But she won't be competing. Bahrke tore her left anterior cruciate ligament before Christmas while training for the season-opening moguls event in Tignes, France

As usual, Bahrke - who makes the Energizer Bunny look like a couch potato - has more than one thing on her agenda. She's looking to reconnect with her teammates on the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team, see her international pals...and quietly introduce her newest quest - Bahrke beans.

Bahrke beans? Yep, as in coffee beans.

While rehabbing her knee, which matches the surgery on her right knee three years ago, Bahrke and her boyfriend began working on a project they hadn't had time for until the injury: Silver Bean Coffee. The silver, of course, plays off her Olympic medal.

"I thought that would be part of the legacy of that medal. It was special," she said.

"We've been sitting here doing research. It's been a long time coming. Silver Bean Coffee will be only in souvenir shops and we'd like to get it into ski shops, in airports and any place skiers and people who love coffee will find it."

She's not looking at going up against $tarbuck$ or Newman's Own. "We're buying pre-roasted beans and eventually we expect to be roasters, but that's expensive, so we're starting this way," Bahrke explained. "This is exciting, and maybe the injury is a blessing in disguise."

Not that she's looking at retiring and plunging fulltime into coffee beans, but it does get her started on a post-competition career.

"We're going for a different niche. A lot of people own coffee shops and they sell coffee wholesale. We're selling this more as a souvenir. Take home our Powderhound Blend, or one of our other blends. Maybe our Alpine Meadows blend...

"I love skiing and love coffee, and i want to share that with our customers." She also hopes to do certain blends for individual athletes - alpine, freestyle, or maybe even specific athletes. "A portion would go to the charity of their choice. It's sometimes tough to do things for charity, so this would be a good way to do it," she said.

As much fun as the new coffee bean venture is, Bahrke doesn't kid herself: this is simply something to keep her busy while she recuperates from that ACL surgery. She's planning on skiing, not retiring.

Bahrke, 27, had toyed with the idea of retirement after the 2006 Olympic season. She'd had a string of frustrations - after her Olympic medal in '02, her Worlds medal in '03 and the World Cup moguls title in '03, she had a bad streak. Bahrke broke her jaw in 2004 when she slammed down on a ski pole while barreling through a moguls field; she broke her jaw and lost the rest of the season. She returned in '05 but tore her right ACL.

She was back for the 2006 Olympics, but it was a frustrating winter. She mulled retirement, but vetoed the thought. Bahrke wasn't, if she could help it, going to quit because of injury. She wanted to pick her retirement announcement, not give in to surgery and call it quits.

"I definitely am coming back. I want to go out on my terms, not through some injury. I know I can be No. 1 again. I have that faith in myself and I want to prove it to everyone," she said.

One key element in her quick early recovery, she said, has been a device, which uses distributes cold and compression to her knee, speeding recovery. The Game Ready system was provided by the U.S. Ski Team Sport Medicine Department for two weeks "and it's been unbelievable. My swelling is about one-tenth of what it was last time, and it's enabled me to start recuperating faster," Bahrke said.

"I strapped it over my brace and it compresses and circulates ice over and around my knee while I'm sitting and even while I'm sleeping. The Ski Team bought two of these expensive machines and I got one for two weeks, which was tremendous," she said.

"It decreased the swelling, which is natural after surgery, and it's helped me get back my range of motion quicker. It's let me get my [leg] extension quicker. It's really amazing."

"That's been good," Bahrke said, "but I also know it's going to be six months before the healing really happens. It's not going to get me back on skis faster because six months is the healing time for an ACL, and that's the way it is. But I'm not losing a lot of muscle mass.

"I haven't had to start from Square-1; maybe it's Square-2 or Square-4."

She laughed as she recalled how she used to think she wasn't "a real moguls skier" because she hadn't had knee surgery. However, with surgery on both knees in the last three years, Bahrke said, "Now I've got bionic knees. I'll be even stronger than ever."

The post Bahrke jumps from bumps to beans appeared first on Park Record.

The SG and GS championships earned her automatic start spots for World Cup races last season. McJames didn't race many of them, but did ski in enough to get her first real taste of what international racing is all about. It's a big step up from NorAms, which largely pit U.S. skiers against Canadians with a few European strays.

Last year, McJames scored her first World Cup points with a 28th on a gnarly giant slalom hill in Cortina d'Ampezzo, the stylish Italian resort village which was the scene of the 1956 Winter Games.

She's back in Cortina this week, but McJames will be facing speed events this time -- a downhill today and then back-to-back super-Gs Sunday and Monday.

(Fog deleted downhill training Wednesday and about three feet of snow Thursday

forced the rebooting of Friday's SG so organizers could hold the lone DH training run, which is required for racers' safety. They must have one opportunity, and preferably two, to ski the high-speed track in a downhill.)

McJames, 20, didn't seem to be intimidated by Cortina's big hill. But maybe you can't be intimidated by something you can't see. In a cell-phone interview Thursday night, she said, "We haven't seen much of the course yet. It's been snowing all day today and it was foggy [Wednesday] ... and a little foggy today, too.

"I've never raced speed [i.e., downhill and super-G] here, but we inspected [Wednesday] morning before the fog stopped the training run. It looks technical, which could help me out," she said. She paused and then reflected on the soft, new snow and -- running at the back of the field -- McJames added, "That could be bad." Soft snow and big entry fields often translate to a choppy, rutted course for racers late in the field. She was scheduled to ski 45th Friday in the field of 56 racers.

cJames said it is what it is. It's something else she has to learn to deal with as she makes her way onto the World Cup ... and, hopefully, to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. She made one immense step just before New Year's when she finished 17th in a World Cup giant slalom in Lienz, Austria.

"It's definitely been a new season and I've been spending a lot of time in Europe, although I did get back to Park City for a week before Christmas, which was great." What wasn't great was flying back to Europe on Christmas Day, but she understands that's part of the life of a ski racer.

"I'm learning to cope with being away so much, but we've been seeing some good places. It's tough being away from home; you do kind of miss it. There's a different language everywhere and the food's different, so you have to find things you like," she said.

"It's been nice, though. Everyone's so good at this level and it's whoever has a good day, it seems. No, it's not like the NorAms, for sure, and that's a bit of a wake-up call, but it's fun, too.

"I've always dreamt of racing in World Cup races, and it's definitely cool. There's more of a crowd, a lot of excitement, but, really, it's just another race. You have to make the top 30 to get a second run." (On the NorAm and Europa Cup circuits, top 60 in the first run get to do it again.)

One way to cope, she said, is "to try to go about it the same way. You can think of the crowd and the hype when you're finished. It certainly helps to have confidence in yourself.

"I've had a little success at this level, gotten into the top 30 [for World Cup points], and now I'm trying to make it more consistent," she explained.

One way of defusing any intimidation factor, she's found, is to stop viewing your young-racer heroes and heroines as unapproachable athletes or bulletproof racers.

"I've started to see the other girls as people, and now I'm getting to know their personalities. It's nice to have the Canadians around. Some of their girls are trying to break through, too. It's good to see familiar faces when you're on the road and, depending on where we are, we'll be in the same hotel with other teams sometimes."

Cortina was the site where Picabo Street said she made the breakthrough which made her a two-time World Cup champion, Olympic gold and silver medal-winner, and World Championships triple medalist. It there in January 1993 that she earned her first top-10 World Cup result, evolving into a contending downhiller after a NorAm career in which she won consecutive overall titles in the early '90s and a GS crown.

Street credited Coach Ernst Hager with unlocking the secret to being a kick-ass downhiller. "Ernie

The post Young Parkite returns to site of first World Cup success appeared first on Park Record.

Star sprinters Kikkan Randall and Andy Newell defended the sprint titles they won a year ago at Michigan Tech. as a throw-in, they added a second gold medal, too, before leaving town Monday morning - Randall for a training camp at Silver Star, B.C., and Newell returning to his home in Vermont.

The third U.S. Ski Team headliner, Kris Freeman - who has produced the best distance results in World Cup racing for the Ski Team since the Bill Koch era in the early Eighties - came down with a bug. He had been sick in Europe before Christmas and was derailed again in Houghton. After the two distance races - the 10K skate race on New Year's Day and the 15K classic technique event Thursday, he decided to take a pass on the sprints and go home to train.

"It's pretty simple, said Head Coach Pete Vordenberg. "When you're sick, you don't get to train. And when you don't train, your fitness, your conditioning just breaks down a little...and that's what's happened with Kris.

"It's important he gets some training because we've got World Cup races coming up [Jan. 22-26 at the 1988 Olympic venue in Canmore, Alberta] and we want him ready."

An abundance of snow, a major about-face from last year when there was almost no snow, meant organizers could use more trails, add a couple of small hills to the short loops available last January for the championships. "They're not big hills, but it's more than we had last season and it adds some variety to the trails," Randall said.

In addition to World Cup starts for Canada, the races were to help decide World Juniors Championships, Under-23 Championships and Scandinavian Cup berths. Announcements on each team were expected later this week. Registration for the races reached 474.

The events at the Michigan Tech Nordic Training Center were the short and medium distance title races. Fairbanks, Alaska, will host the long distance races, the men's 30K pursuit and 50K classic technique plus the women's 15K pursuit and 30K CL.

A look back at the championships (for complete results, go to www.seniornationals.org ):

Jan. 1 (Freestyle technique - men's 10K and women's 5K) - Defending SuperTour champion Caitlin Compton won the 5K in 13:47.1 with Liz Stephen runner-up in 14:11.8. Ivan Babikov of Russia won the men's race (24:23.7) but medals at nationals go only to U.S. citizens, so he had to content himself with the $1,200 first prize while Leif Zimmermann, second in 24:39.3, was gold medalist. It's his second title.

Jan. 3 (Classic technique - men's 15K and women's 10K) - Randall gained her seventh U.S. title while Babikov had the fastest men's time again, meaning runner-up Lars Flora was the gold medal-winner; it's his fifth national championship. But Babikov was $1,200 richer.

Randall, whose World Cup victory in a sprint in Russia last month was the first by an American woman, was left shaking her head when she finished 10th in the 5K. She felt better 48 hours later. "I didn't know what happened in the 5K," she said, "but this was better."

Flora started well, he said, but Babikov was unstoppable. "Ivan was flying," he said, noting Freeman was 20 seconds down after the first lap and he, Flora, was another 10 back of him. On the second lap, Flora moved up a spot and held off Alexey Golokov from Kazakistan as Freeman dropped to fourth.

Jan. 5 (FR sprints) - Newell and Randall's tea party. Each led the qualifying round, Randall comfortably ahead of Laura Valaas while Newell led Midwesterner Garrott Kuzzy by over two seconds, too. Valaas won the SuperTour sprint crown last season (nine wins)(wow!) and took the sprint silver medal at the Under-23 Championships; Kuzzy is leading the SuperTour overall standings.

Randall almost put herself out it in the first of the finals heats. In the quarterfinal, she caught a ski tip in the snow along the trail and went down while the pack skeid away. "Total rookie mistake," she said. "I thought 'What have I done?'"

And then she got up, got back in the track and went out to reel-in everyone - and spank 'em! She bounced back and won by nearly two seconds. She breezed through the semifinal while Valaas was doing the same thing in her bracket.

Randall and Valas are training mates not only with the U.S. Ski Team but with Alaska Pacific University Nordic. In the final heat, Valaas couldn't catch her teammate as Randall skied away to her eighth title.

Torin Koos is Newell's wing man on the World Cup. The ex-University of Utah skier, who was on a World Cup podium in Estonia last January, was looking for this match-up in the final heat, but he couldn't stay with Newell, who scooted off with his second consecutive sprint championship.

Jan. 6 (CL team sprints, each skier racing three times on a 1.3K loop) - With Randall and Valaas teamed, it looked like a battle for the silver medal. But a delay in the start of the races was coupled with warmer temperatures, which created waxing problems for some skiers. But Lindsay Williams and Lindsey (Weier) Dehlin, full of confidence and racing on smokin' skis, had no problems.

Rivals in high school in Minnesota, they were teammates at Northern Michigan University for four years, teammates on the 2006 Olympic Team...and last March, each of them won an NCAA championship. They are very much in sync.

On the final lap, as Valaas and Randall were being torpedoed by the weather which slowed their skis, Williams took the tag from Dehlin and took off. She took the lead on a downhill out of the start and, to use her words, "went like hell." Nobody caught her.

"Kikkan and Laura are really good, but I knew we could ski well, too. We both were 'On' and I knew if we were, we could do it," Williams said.

The championships conclude March 28-30 in Fairbanks, Alaska.

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World Cup Finals will be a pintsize Olympics. Alpine, cross-country, freestyle and snowboarding will be in and around Bormio, putting a cork in their World Cup season. Jumping and Nordic combined will be elsewhere but Bormio will be rockin' during that third weekend of March with everyone else.

But, first, after the holiday hiccup - one men's race between Dec. 17 and this weekend - the new year for alpine begins today. The men face their annual giant slalom in Adelboden, Switzerland, and there's a GS for the women in Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic. Each site will have a slalom Sunday.

U.S. alpine skiers have been feisty through the first period of the winter: Four wins, a hefty handful of top-3 results, a couple of World Cup discipline leaders.

As things resume, Parkite Lindsey Vonn leads the women's downhill and combined points; She's already won three races and passed Picabo Street - one of her earliest heroines - to become No. 2 on the all-time U.S. women's list. Tamara McKinney has 18 World Cup victories (nine in slalom, nine in GS) with Vonn at 10 (seven downhills, two super-Gs and that super combined in St. Anton, Austria, before Christmas). Street had nine wins, all in DH.

On the men's side, Bode Miller - training on his own this season - won his 26th World Cup race in Bormio on Dec. 29. That puts him one shy of Phil Mahre's U.S. record for wins. (Could he do it today? He was second in Adelboden in 2005 when he won the overall World Cup crown, the first American to do so since Mahre and McKinney turned the trick in 1983.)

Overall, Miller is third in the men's points with Ted Ligety fifth.

Ligety has been a virtual whisker away from winning this season. As Adelboden prepared to stage this weekend's races, he's leading the giant slalom standings.

Adelboden is considered by many to be the best GS hill on the circuit although Ligety might put Alta Badia, Italy, and Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria, on the GS "podium," too.

He's got three podiums, starting with a second-place showing in the opening race of the season on a glacier last October in Austria.

"I'm really impressed with the way Ted's been skiing. He's one of the fastest guys out there, if not the fastest in GS," coach Sasha Rearick said. "He has laid down some absolutely blazing runs."

From Adelboden, the men head to Wengen, Switzerland, for the 78th Lauberhorn Race Weekend. The schedule calls for a super combined, the Lauberhorn downhill and a slalom.

Miller won the Lauberhorn a year ago. After winning in Bormio, he said he does better the tougher courses - Wengen is the longest on the circuit, upwards of 2-1/2 minutes - because they force him to focus harder.

Trivia question: Who was the first American man to win a World Cup DH, and where did he do it? And when?

Trivia answer: Bill Johnson skied off course, then came back onto the course and won the 1984 Lauberhorn, just before the Olympics in Sarajevo.

After the Czech Republic, the women have one more weekend of gate-running, heading next weekend to Maribor, Slovenia, for their annual GS-on-Saturday-slalom-on-Sunday lineup.

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Vonn reclaimed the red leader's bib Saturday in St. Moritz, Switzerland when she finished second to Anja Paerson of Sweden in the third DH of the season. Last February at the 2007 World Championships in Are, Sweden, it was the same finish: Paerson for gold, Vonn (then still Kildow) for silver.

This time, there was an extra wrinkle of coincidence in the race. St. Moritz hosted the 2003 World Championships. Vonn didn't get to race because she had dinged a hip at Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies when she crashed coming into the final straight-away to the finish line.

Since that crash, Vonn has emerged as one of the premier skiers, especially in speed events (i.e., downhill and super-G). She's won eight World Cup races and had 15 other podiums, and added two World Championships silver medals (behind Paerson each time in DH and super-G last February).

Saturday, Paerson won with a time of 1:39.32 - just eight-hundredths up on Vonn. Maria Riesch of Germany was third in 1:39.65. Park City Winter Sports School alum Julia Mancuso was 10th.

Riesch, one of Vonn's best friends on the tour, will play host to Vonn next week for the Christmas holidays. She'll stay in Europe rather than undergo the rigors of traveling home for a few days before putting a U-turn in her travel and have to endure another flight to Europe. No travel and sharing Christmas with a friend and her family. Sounds like a nice present.

"Maria's a good friend and we enjoy hanging out," Vonn said. "It was so cool to be on the podium together, although I wish we'd been 1-2 - with me No. 1. Her family is always so welcoming to me, so it'll be a nice holiday."

Vonn had a smokin' run underway until she caught an edge midway through the run. It interrupted her flow as she instantly regained her composure, but when you lose by 0.08 seconds, it's easy to spot where you lost that micro-second of time.

Coach Alex Hoedlmoser said the bobble occurred in front of him and he was pleased to see how rapidly she rebuilt her speed. "I could just about reach out and touch her when it happened, she was so close," he said.

"She was attacking all the way, really charging, and definitely was in the hunt again. A little bobble like that happens sometimes when you're going for it like she was."

Sunday in super-G, it was Paerson again for the win as she took the World Cup overall points lead. Her time was 1:15.06, just nudging Canadian Emily Brydon (1:15.10) with Austrian great Renate Goetschl in third place (1:15.28).

With 37 World Cup victories, Paerson - who hails from Tarnaby, home of Swedish icon Ingemar Stenmark - is 49 wins away from tying her idol. Stenmark's 86 World Cup wins is the all-time high-water mark for men or women.

Mancuso, with a time of 1:15.57, was 10th again, Vonn 12th and Libby Ludlow 24th.

Head Coach Patrick Riml pointed to the closeness of the race with Mancuso and Vonn within a half-second of Paerson. "Things are so tight."

Vonn had a problem on the upper section of the course and momentarily went down on a hip. Mancuso lost time with a bobble on the bottom of the course.

The women's next races are Friday and Saturday in St. Anton, Austria, the 2001 alpine Worlds venue. They run downhill Friday and have a super combined (a downhill and one run of slalom) Saturday. WCSN.com will have same-day Web-streaming coverage at 10 a.m.

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Already the men's World Cup giant slalom leader, Ligety had one good run and one over-the-moon run in a slalom at Alta Badia, Italy. He was 12th in the first run and laid down a screaming run to move up nine spots in the final times.

"I can't wait to get home," he said afterward. "It'll be good, for sure, to have some down time."

The men's World Cup tour wrapped up a busy weekend in Italy's Dolomites with the slalom, which was won by Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Grange. They ran super-G Friday and downhill Saturday in Val Gardena, Italy, before a GS Sunday in Alta Badia and then Grange's sizzling performance.

The next men's race is the annual downhill Dec. 29 in Bormio, Italy, the 2005 alpine World Championships venue where Bode Miller won the DH gold medal.

A recap:

Monday (SL in Alta Badia) - Ligety was troubled by the fact he hadn't finished the last three slaloms. He ended that dry spell with an exclamation point. Grange won in 1:36.12, laying down the fastest time on each run. Germany's Felix Neureuther was second in 1:36.86 and Ligety had a two-run time of 1:37.52. Vermonter Jimmy Cochran, who has spent most of the last couple of summers in Park City, was eighth (1:38.49).

"It's cool to be up on the podium with those guys," Ligety said, "because we've come up together. They're good guys and it's nice to share this success."

For Cochran, watching the three of them scorch the second slalom run was exciting. "Ted was skiing so fast...and so were the others.

"All three of them were on a different level today from all of us. It was impressive," according to Cochran.

Sunday (GS in Alta Badia) - Ligety was penalized because he was late for the public bib draw Saturday night. He was moved back to the 46th start spot. With his emotions on a lower simmer, he tore through the first run and was an eye-popping 10th.

On the second run, Ligety had the fastest time and jumped up five more places to finish fifth behind Kalle Palander of Finland. The winning two-run time was 2:30.92; Austrian Benni Raich, the World Cup leader, was second in 2:31.34.

Ligety's time was 2:31.50 with Cochran 10th and Parkite Erik Schlopy 28th. Miller was victimized when one his bindings gave way and the ski flew off.

"On the second run I picked it up, for sure. The course held up great - they iced it some - and I could go," Ligety said. "It's tough to battle back from that far out [running 46th] to start, but I went for it."

Saturday (DH in Val Gardena) - Michael Walchhofer of Austria won it in 1:56.70, just ahead of Swiss great Didier Cuche (1:56.88). Third place went to Scott Macartney, who claimed the second top-3 of his career (and his first in DH). Macartney's time was 1:57.26 with Miller eighth.

Macartney was happy with the result, but the two-time Olympian from Dartmouth College noted, "I didn't do anything amazing, just charged and had a mostly mistake-free run." Sometimes success can be that simple.

A delighted men's speed Head Coach Chris Brigham said, "This is awesome." Scotty Mac' has been paying his dues for a long time and this is a sweet payback for him."

Steven Nyman, a Park City Ski Team alum, won the 2006 downhill in Val Gardena, but he barely got started Saturday, crashing out of the start.

Friday (super G in Val Gardena) - Miller, who is training apart from the U.S. Ski Team this season, collected his first podium of the early season. He overtook Liechtensteiner Marco Buechel to take the lead at 1:36.64. But Cuche came down next and skied to the win with a time of 1:36.62.

At the usual post-race press conference, Miller said he felt in good shape and his skis were working well, but he hadn't executed in previous races. He also wasn't holding back, he said, adding, "I'm always attacking, no matter what the course is."

Four U.S. men broke into the top 30. After Miller, Macartney was 23rd with Park City's T.J. Lanning 26th and Marco Sullivan 27th.

The post Ligety grabs podium spot in slalom in Italy appeared first on Park Record.

Ask Parkite Ted Ligety, who held onto his No. 1 spot in the World Cup giant slalom standings over the weekend. But he did it the hard way: overcoming two straight courses Saturday to finish third in the third GS of the season, this one in Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria

The leader in each discipline (slalom, GS, downhill, et.) wears a red bib so course spectators, who otherwise might be distracted - or be clueless, know right away here's someone to watch.

"I'm liking this red bib. It's comfortable," he joked. "And it clashes nicely with my [pink] goggles. Yeah, red bib and pink Shred goggles. That works." More laughter as he enjoyed working a plug for his line of goggles (Shred) into the post-race cell phone call.

His second podium of the season, following his second-place result in the opening on a glacier elsewhere in Austria six weeks earlier, was the high point of the weekend for U.S. men, who had gone back to Europe after the Charles Schwab Birds of Prey races at Beaver Creek, Colo. No one finished in the top 30 Sunday in a slalom.

Two Italians led the GS Saturday. Max Blardone, who won the Birds of Prey GS a year ago, won the fourth race of his career. His two-run time was 2:10.75 with Manfred Moelgg second in 2:10.84. Ligety was third with a 2:10.92 clocking and Bode Miller, the only other U.S. man to make the second run, finished seventh (2:11.67).

With a big hill and plenty of room to set a sweeping course that was technical, the gents got two down-the-fall-line, tight (i.e., few real turns) runs.

"The set was not good for me - it was super, super straight," Ligety said. "They took it straight down the hill. My second run was a little haggard, on the edge. The course was a little bumpy but it really held up great."

Head Coach Phil McNichol was pleased with the way Ligety shrugged off the narrow course-set and still laid down two strong runs for the podium.

"It was your basic Clint Eastwood movie - 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.' Ted didn't get a favorable course-set on either run," the coach said, "and he made some mistakes, but he was moving.

"This is a big, wide hill - one of the most challenging we'll see - and I would have thought they'd put some swing into it, go side to side a little more. But they ran it pretty much down the fall line, a straight course for each run. He adapted beautifully on each run and took it down the hill, full-on, as usual for Ted."

Sunday, Austrian Benjamin Raich picked off the 30th win of his brilliant career, winning the slalom with a time of 1:34.46. Jimmy Cochran was the only American to get into the second run, finishing seventh in the first run. However, as he tore through the second run, he went off course.

Ligety didn't finish the first run and none of the others were in the top 30 to make the second run.

Men's tech (slalom/GS) Head Coach Sasha Rearick refused an all doom-and-gloom review of the slalom. He still saw silver linings to the day.

"We don't have any points for the day, but I saw some good things out there. Jimmy was going for the podium and taking risks. When you attack like that, you take risks and sometimes it gets you," he explained.

"Last time [in Reiteralm, Austria, a month ago], he was fourth in the first run and cut back a little on his second run and finished 14th. This time he was going for it all the way."

Next races for the men are in Italy - super-G Friday and downhill Saturday in Val Gardena with giant slalom and slalom Sunday-Monday in Alta Badia.

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