World Cup Alpine Skiing - weekend 4/7 March

I missed the live action in the Women's Super Combined at Tarvisio today (4 March), but from all accounts it was another exciting race and the battle between Lindsey Vonn and Maria Riesch continues! The race was won by Tina Maze, continuing her recent run of good form - certainly a multi discipline contender now. Lindsey Vonn, who was leading after the downhill leg, had a good slalom run (her first for a while?) to come in second, only 0.18 seconds adrift. This was good enough to give her the "mini globe" for the World Cup Super Combined series for the 2nd year running; her 10th globe so far in her career. Maria Riesch kept her overall championship hopes alive by coming in third, 0.55 seconds behind Maze. Apparently she wasn't too happy about her slalom performance (pressure?) so this was good damage limitation, and she has only lost 20 points to Vonn today - currently Maria is 176 points clear with 8 races to go, so there's still everything to play for; should be an exciting end to the season!

Anja Paerson finished 4th - tough lady as I thought she'd been hurt at Are last weekend. Lizzie Görgl took 5th place and Julia Mancuso 6th. More details at, among other sources, http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/04032011/58/vonn-comes-second-seal-world-cup-title.html

Giant Slalom for the Men in Kranjska Gora and the Women’s downhill from Tarvisio. Busy day today though because in addition there are two biathlon sprints from Siberia, plus at the Nordic World Championships today sees the Women’s cross country 30 km mass start and the HS 134 ski jumping from Oslo.

Anyway – back to Alpine and the first event from KG; the first run of the GS; favourites are perhaps the “usual suspects” (die üblichen Verdächtigen as ZDF had it) - Ted Ligety, Cyprien Richard and Philipp Schörghofer . First out of the gate is Carlo Janka; amazing to see him already back on the piste after his heart operation – a real credit to his surgeon (for Terry Pratchett fans, you may wish to know the surgeon's first name is apparently Igor [hope that’s right, sure I saw that somewhere]!). To my surprise Ted Ligety doesn’t have a perfect run and with 10 racers down Ted is third (+0.72), behind Janka (2nd; +0.65) and Philipp Schörghofer. Both Aksel Lund Svindal and Ivica Kostelic apparently have injuries / health issues and are further back than you’d expect. The course seems to be cutting up; back to warmer conditions this weekend and that’s not helping the later starters; after 30 racers the top 3 are still the same! Second run will hopefully be a bit more exciting!

Meanwhile – over to Tarvisio and the Women’s downhill – much more interesting! With 13 racers down Ingrid Jaquemod is holding the lead, but now come the really fast team – led by Tina Maze (start no 14), who takes over the top slot by 0.06 seconds. Two later it’s Maria Riesch who’s giving it everything; catches an edge but still goes into third 0.08 behind Tina. Start no 18 is Lizzie Görgl, who in turn takes the lead, by 0.06 from Tina – very close racing. However, now it’s Anja Paerson – knee injury from last week apparently OK, and it’s certainly not a problem as she shatters the best time to go 1.17 seconds ahead – looks in pain, but she’s currently on top of the podium – can Lindsey Vonn knock her off? She starts 21st and is also motoring but then has a heart stopper, same place as Maria? Even so, into 2nd place 0.73 behind Anja. Did my ears deceive me or did Chemmy say that someone didn’t have the same number of kilos as Anja and would therefore find the glide slower? Anyway – it’s a great win for Paerson, with a run that left the rest miles behind. Vonn’s second means she wins the “mini globe” for the downhill this year, to add to the Super Kombi that she clinched yesterday; she also closes down another 40 points on Maria Riesch in the overall standings – the gap is now down to 136 points. Well done to all; Super G tomorrow and the 2nd leg of the men’s GS coming up

So back to Kranjska Gora for the second run in the GS. The snow is unpredictable and cutting up again as the top 30 go again, in reverse order. With only 3 remaining it's an all French podium - Alexis Pinturault in his debut World Cup season is the slightly surprising leader (although I think he's an ex Junior World Champion) with Cyprien Richard 2nd and Thomas Fanara third. Over to Ted Ligety to see if he can spoil the French party - good run but he loses time in the middle section and ends up second by 0.1 seconds. Next up is Carlo Janka - looking very relaxed after his operation and glad to be back in form. He also loses time in the middle section and at the final split is only 0.06 ahead; less than Ted at the same point - it's going to be tight! Janka however is brilliant on the final section and takes the lead by 0.02 seconds - this is much better than run 1! Final starter is Philipp Schörghofer, who is out of the gate and really taking risks - alas he takes one too many and the snow takes its revenge - he's out and the Austrian men's season stays disappointing. Fairy tale ending for Carlo Janka; hugely impressive win from Alexis Pinturault, up from 16th in the first run to be only 2 hundredths off the win, and Ted Ligety.

Again I only saw the start of the first run of the Men's Slalom from Kranjska Gora, but that was enough to see one of the favourites go out early! Myhrer (Swe) had set the early pace and Jean Baptiste Grange was obviously working hard to catch up - unfortunately he had a couple of heart stopping moments and was slower; however slow motion analysis showed he'd straddled a gate and he was disqualified. Ivica Kostelic took it easy, safeguarding his overall lead from his nearest threat J-B Grange, while Razzioli and Neureuther took greater risks and skied out. After watching a disappointing run from Ted Ligety and a much better one by Axel Bäck who went on to lead after run 1, I had to go out - what would the second run bring?

Another surprise in run 2 as Kostelic, with a chance to wrap up the slalom title, followed J-B's example and straddled a gate - after slow motion re-runs, protests and reinstatement, then eventually Ivica's DQ, the Frenchman, 36 points behind, gets to contest the title in the final race (Switzerland March 19th)! Meanwhile the on form Mario Matt, lying 5th after run 1, produced a storming 2nd run to take the lead and a well deserved win by only 0.09 seconds from highly tipped American Nolan Kasper who tied for second place with Axel Bäck. See also [url]http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/06032011/58/matt-wins-kostelic-grange-dq-d.html [/url]

Over in Tarvisio it was time for the Women's Super G and once more it was Lindsey Vonn's day - well in form she won the event which also sealed her victory in this discipline - another "mini globe" adding the Super G title to the Downhill and Super Combined - 3 globes in 3 days!! Julia Mancuso finished 2nd which also helped Lindsey as it took a few more points off third placed Maria Riesch now leading the overall title race by only 96 points have seen her lead eroded little by little over the weekend. [url]http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/06032011/58/vonn-wins-super-g-crystal-globe.html [/url]