The FIS European Cup in Alpine Skiing concluded last week in Kranjska Gora (SLO) and Tarvisio (ITA) which shared the Finals responsibility over the border. The overall victory in the men's rankings went to the 21-year-old Swiss Christian Spescha from Obersaxen, the home town (with 800 inhabitants) of the men's overall World Cup winner Carlo Janka. Spescha is the first Swiss winner of the men's EC overall rankings in nine years. He won the ranking with a margin of 63 points over the Frenchman Anthony Obert and thus follows Austrians Marcel Hirscher and Florian Scheiber who won the title in the last two years, respectively.

The ladies overall rankings were won by Germany's Lena Dürr who triumphed ahead of Ramona Siebenhofer of Austria and Elena Curtoni of Italy. The technical specialist Dürr will turn 19 this summer and raced her third European Cup season. Dürr follows in the footsteps of Maria Riesch (EC overall champion in 2002), Elisabeth Goergl (2003), Andrea Fischbacher (2005), Anna Fenninger (2006&2007) and Lara Gut (2008). According to the current rules, the European Cup overall winner receives a personal starting place in all events in the World Cup next season

The men's downhill title went to 28-year-old Swiss Cornel Züger whilst in super-G, the victory in the season rankings was collected by Petr Zahrobsky (CZE). In slalom, the Swedes swept the podium led by Anton Lahdenperä and the World Cup rookie of the year Axel Bäck. In giant slalom, Austrian Christoph Nösig and in super combined, Paulo Pangrazzi (ITA), both won a personal, event-specific starting place in the World Cup for next season.

"We had an excellent season and a truly outstanding finale on both sides of the border in Italy and Slovenia. I am especially pleased with our high quality speed season which provided really good practice for the racers in their development toward World Cup downhill racing," commented Markus Waldner, FIS Coordinator for the men's EC. "Thanks to good weather conditions, we were able to deliver the entire scheduled program, bar one cancellation. We were also lucky in that we did not see large numbers of injuries."

On the ladies' side the slalom title was won by Bernadette Schild, sister of Marlies, and the GS title by Lena Loeseth (NOR), one of the four Loeseth sisters. Victory in the super-G rankings went to Mariella Volgreither (AUT), in downhill to Rabea Grand (SUI) and in super combined to Elena Curtoni (ITA).

"Overall, we had a good season in the ladies' European Cup. We definitely lost two races, a downhill and a super combined that we could not recover; in all other cases we were able to find a solution for rescheduling soon. One of the season highlights was surely the night slalom in Greffoney (ITA), a newcomer in our calendar, which positively surprised us in all areas," commented Janez Flere, the FIS Coordinator for the ladies' EC, who added: "We saw a new generation of racers coming to the fore, racers that are still very young but very good. Noteworthy was also the good distribution of podiums and top places across a larger number of nations this year, from the core Alpine nations to Norway, Sweden and so forth."

FISalpine.com
19 March 2010

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