Women's Downhill
Austria's Renate Goetschl celebrated a crucial success today in Are's two-run downhill on a demanding, snowy course. The reigning downhill World Champion ended a frustrating period of losses, beating Germany's very consistent performer, Regina Haeusl, by 36/100 of a second. Haeusl reached her fourth 2nd place of the season in today's race.

	Goetschl

Another Austrian, veteran Stefanie Schuster, was 3rd at 89/100 ahead of her teammate Michaela Dorfmeister, who also achieved her best result of the season in downhill.

Regine Cavagnoud from France overcame her apprehension after a near-crash during Friday's training run to score a strong 8th place. Yet, she is now 3rd in the standings — almost three hundred points behind the Overall leader. It will be hard for her to fill this gap in the last month of competition.

America's Jona Mendes, who wore bib #1, crashed in the first run while her teammate Alison Power was not able to qualify. Kirsten Clark reached a good 19th place, not far behind the Italian world class downhill specialist Isolde Kostner, 17th.

"I guess that we have to wait until the last races to know the winner of the Cup. It's good for us and for the show — it's good to have something left to fight for...." — Renate Goetschl (AUT)

Winning her third World Cup race of the season, after the super G in Altenmarkt and the combined at Santa Caterina, Goetschl increased her lead in the Overall World Cup standings. She now has a 56-point advance on Dorfmeister.

In the downhill standings, everything remains wide opened since Isolde Kostner, the recent winner at Santa Caterina, lost much ground on her rivals in today's race. Haeusl will wear the red leader's bib in the next race in Innsbruck. She leads in the standings with 388 points, six more than Kostner, who never found her usual rhythm on the short, yet demanding Are course. Like many other skiers, including France's Regine Cavagnoud, Kostner was impressed by the long Russi jump, where many skiers crashed today.

Goetschl was delighted to have won her second downhill here in Are — almost a year after her last success in St. Moritz. So far this season, Goetschl only managed one top-three win — again at St. Moritz, where she came 2nd. She dominated her rivals on both runs today and never seemed in danger of losing the race.

"I felt very confident again and I had no problem handling the course which was much more challenging today than in training," she said. "The snow was much harder and the course much faster. In the past months, I have had a hard time with my skis, which were not cruising as well as usual on the dry man-made snow. But here everything went fine on the natural snow. I'm charged now with great momentum and looking ahead for the coming races. There are some exciting competitions left, including the difficult speed events at Innsbruck, on the 1976 Olympic course.

"I'm happy to have found my best form at this moment, but I don't think too much about the Overall World Cup. There are many races left and Michaela Dorfmeister is also in good form and quite motivated. I guess that we have to wait until the last races to know the winner of the Cup. It's good for us and for the show — it's good to have something left to fight for. We have to remain very focused and motivated. I have enough experience now to be able to skip the pressure in my mind. I have not planned to be in this position at the season start so I prefer to concentrate on each race as it comes. I would be glad and proud to win the Overall World Cup trophy, but I would not be too disappointed to lose it to Michaela."

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In her career, Goetschl has already accumulated a series of great successes. At 17, she won her first World Cup race, a slalom in Norway's Lillehammer during the 1993 World Cup Finals. In 1997, she was the only Austrian skier to clinch a gold medal at the Ski World Championships in combined. Last winter, she won five races, the downhill World Cup and three medals at Vail during the World Championships.

A fine all-around skier able to score top results in all specialties, Goetschl has, in fact, an excellent chance of becoming the next Austrian to conquer the Overall World Cup, one year after her teammate Alexandra Meissnitzer.

	Haeusl

In Sunday's slalom, Kristina Koznick will try to keep up her improving form — she was 4th last week in Santa Caterina and she seems ready for her first podium. She won the slalom in Are in 1998 when it was set on the lower part of the downhill. This year, it will start higher, which should make it more demanding.

"Today it's Sarah Schlepper's 21st birthday and it would be nice to celebrate it with good results tomorrow," Koznick said at the bib draw presentation.

France's Christel Saioni will fight against Slovenia's Spela Pretnar for the race and the lead in the slalom World Cup standings. Also ready for the victory are Sweden's sweetheart Anja Paerson and Norway's Trine Bakke, who has received bib #1.

— Patrick Lang, MountainZone.com World Cup Correspondent