Women's Downhill
Corinne Rey-Bellet was born on August 2nd, 1972, but today she celebrated a different kind of anniversary, and she did it in the most brilliant fashion in sunny Altenmarkt, Austria, where the first downhill of the New Year took place in perfect weather. Exactly one year ago, in St. Anton, the Swiss skier won her very first World Cup race. These two wins, first a super G and now a downhill, mark a unique achievement in World Cup history.

	Rey-Bellet

In 4th place, Stefanie Schuster gave the best Austrian time while the Overall World Cup favorites had a disappointing day. Renate Goetschl and Michaela Dorfmeister placed 14th and 15th and Italy's Isolde Kostner, the great favorite after her domination in training, only placed 19th. But Kostner was in lucky in escaping injury after falling on her back after miscalculating the first jump. It was a poor showing for the Americans, as well. Kristin Clark was a far 22nd and Caroline Lalive 29th.

Today is a true comeback for the 27-year old Rey-Bellet as she beat Germany's Regina Haeusl on by 15/100 of a second and Martina Ertl by 64/100 on this demanding Zauchensee course. After her triumph in St. Anton, Rey-Bellet was not able to reach her potential in the next events and failed to win a single medal at Vail during the FIS World Championships.

Last fall, she created quite a confusion within the women's team when she stood up with her teammate Sylviane Berthod against their downhill trainer, Peter Mueller. They claimed that Mueller, a former downhill World Champion as well as a great character on the Ski Tour for many years, was too rude with the young skiers and also too obsessed with intensive physical training. Rey-Bellet and Berthod succeeded in this coup against their authoritarian trainer, who was replaced first by CEO of the Swiss Federation, Jean Pascal Mudry, and most recently by Marie Therese Nadig, double Olympic Champion in downhill and giant slalom in Sapporo in 1972 and Overall World Cup champion in 1981. Nadig was already a trainer with the Swiss juniors when she received the promotion.

"It could not get worse so I decided it can only become better in the future. I was happy to return on the downhill and I soon felt very comfortable here..." — Corinne Rey-Bellet (SUI)

After a strong season start in Lake Louise where she was 3nd in the downhill, Corinne Rey-Bellet went into a slump in December. Only 7th in the first downhill in St. Moritz, marked by several serious crashes, she skied out in the second run after clocking one of the fastest intermediate times. Her situation worsened in the following giant slalom races. Last week she didn't even qualify for the second run in Berchtesgaden. She also started to suffer serious back pains and had to get some intensive treatment at home.

"It could not get worse so I decided it can only become better in the future," she said after the race. "I was happy to return on the downhill and I soon felt very comfortable here. My morale got a strong boost when I clocked the third time the other day and I felt ready to attack today. I was not too much affected by my slow time on the last training run on Friday when I heard that I had been testing a new pair of skis that day."

	Haeusl

Rey-Bellet, who's been competing since 1992 on the women's tour, is a very experienced as well as a very determined person who can develop incredible aggressiveness when she feels able to reach a good result. That was the case today in the technically demanding intermediate part where she perfectly mastered a series of difficult turns on which other favorites lost much time. France's Régine Cavagnoud for instance, the fastest skier in the upper gliding section, lost over a second there on her Swiss rival and Haeusl.

"What a great day for me and my team — now I aim for more in the rest of the season. There are still a lot of races to come and I will now fight for the downhill World Cup," said Rey-Bellet. She is also one of the main favorites in Sunday's super G, together with Italy's Karen Putzer, the best in St. Moritz, and Martina Ertl, who scored the best downhill result of her career today (a week after reaching her first podium of the season in Berchtesgaden) and won the super G here in 1998.

This race will also be an important test for Renate Goetschl and Michaela Dorfmeister, who dominated the speed events in the past. Neither of them can be satisfied with their results today.

— Patrick Lang, MountainZone.com Correspondent