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St. Moritz, Italy
December 17-19, 1999
Women's Downhill
Sweden's Pernilla Wiberg scored a painful win on Saturday afternoon in the second dramatic downhill race held on the "Corviglia" run above St. Moritz this weekend. The 1997 Overall World Cup Champion, and six-time gold medal winner from 1991 to 1999, injured her knee after a jump while steaming towards her second downhill victory — her 24th on the World Cup tour.
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 Pernilla Wiberg |
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She almost crashed after the jump but managed to stay on her feet and crossed the finish line with a new best time. She beat the reigning World Champion Renate Goetschl by 22/100 of a second while Hilde Gerg came back after a disappointing race yesterday to finish 3rd at 31/100.
Yesterday's winner, Italy's Isolde Kostner, placed 7th, once again ahead of Germany's Regina Haeusl. Slovenia's Spela Bracun, 2nd on Friday, skied out of the course in the upper part of the run.
Canada's Mélanie Turgeon reached a promising 5th place while Jonas Mendes fell to 20th. Kristen Clark crashed after the main jump but escaped without injury. In fact this third downhill of the season was plagued by a series of accidents near that jump. Three skiers have been seriously hurt: Norway's Kristine Kristiansen, Switzerland's Sylviane Berthod and Austria's Marianne Salchinger.
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| "I was charging but my experience helped me to always remain under control of my line and my skis. It was quite easy to go over your limits in these tricky turns, which were certainly underestimated by most of the skiers ..." — Pernilla Wiberg (AUT) |
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Pernilla Wiberg, the only active skier to have won races in all alpine specialties in her brilliant career, clinched one downhill at Vail, Colorado, during the 1997 World Cup finals. Yet she likes this specialty, which brought her an Olympic silver medal at Nagano in 1998. In the morning, as soon as she found out that the upper flat part of the Corviglia run had to be taken out of the race because of strong winds, "Pilla" realized that she had a shot at the podium.
"I lost much time in the upper gliding section on Friday but I was pretty fast in the technically demanding bottom, so I knew that I had a chance to do well today," she said at the finish line. "I was charging but my experience helped me to always remain under control of my line and my skis. It was quite easy to go over your limits in these tricky turns, which were certainly underestimated by most of the skiers — as were the jumps," she said.
"It's too bad that so many skiers fell and got injured but I think that the girls don't train enough on their jumping technique. In a way it's quite normal since we have not been skiing on such demanding courses for a while. You also had to use your brain today."
When Wiberg touched the ground after that infamous jump, she fought hard to stay on her feet. In doing so, she leaned back and injured her left knee as she tried to remain in position. "It's an old injury which is bothering me," she said. "It's painful but I hope to be able to race on Sunday. It would be too bad to loose my momentum now," said Wiberg.
The Swede will decide in the morning if she feels able to compete. She also plans on seeing a knee specialist in the coming days. Wiberg struggled throughout this early part of the season. She only scored in the top-three at the super G in Val d'Isère. As with many other established slalom skiers, Wiberg has a hard time finding her best rhythm in slalom using the new short skis. She did not qualify for the second slalom run in Sestriere, quite an upset for this past slalom World Champion who also a runner-up in last season's slalom World Cup standings.
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 Goetschl |
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In reaching her podium in a speed event since the start of the season, Renate Goetschl (AUT) was finally able to honor her World title won last February in Vail. She said didn't ski too well in the lower difficult part but at least she is back on track after skiing out in Lake Louise. She was 4th on Friday.
Also progressing is France's Régine Cavagnoud, 6th, at only 23/100 of a second away from her first downhill podium of the season. It was quite an improvement over her 28th place on Friday. She beat by 7/100 the previous winner, Isolde Kostner, who was afraid to take many risks this time. Yet Kostner managed to take over the Overall World Cup lead, which she will try to consolidate on Sunday in the super G.
Another strong candidate for this last super G of the century is Germany's Hilde Gerg, who, in 3rd, claimed her fourth podium today in this fifth speed event of this season. Other World Cup favorites Michaela Dorfmeister (AUT) or Martina Ertl (GER) didn't manage to get close to the podium. They were 10th and 16th, respectively.
— Manuèle Joyce, MountainZone.com Correspondent