Garmisch: Matt wins World Cup slalom       
Sunday, 25 February 2007 

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany — World champion Mario Matt of Austria won a men's slalom Sunday for his seventh World Cup victory.
    Matt led after the first run by more than half a second and protected his margin in the second heat to win ahead of Germany's Felix Neureuther. Matt had a combined time of 1 minute, 35.66 seconds.
    Neureuther clocked 1:36.07 on his home slope and Benjamin Raich of Austria was third in 1:36.97.
    Raich moved closer to overall World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and stayed second in the slalom standings, ahead of Matt and behind Jens Byggmark of Sweden.
    Neureuther was also second behind Matt after the first run at the World Championship in Are, Sweden, earlier this month, but then fell in the second heat.
    This time, Neureuther withstood the pressure in front of home fans on the Gudiberg hill where his father Christian was the last German to win a World Cup slalom in this southern German resort 33 years ago.  
    Christian said he didn't have the nerves to watch his son disappearing ''somewhere in the mountains,'' but Felix's mother Rosi Mittermaier, an Olympic champion, was at the finish line.
    ''I tried to block out everything and just think of my race,'' Neureuther said. ''Everything was reminding me of Are, being second after the first run, the same course setter for the second.''
    ''It wasn't that simple. With all the fans waiting for me, it was a special situation. But it all worked out.''
    Matt led after the first run by more than half a second and protected his margin in the second heat to score his seventh World Cup victory and sixth in a slalom. The Austrian has finished in the top three in his last six slalom races. He also won a super combi this season in Wengen, Switzerland.
    ''It wasn't easy to race here. The way the second run was set made it very difficult, you had to change directions very swiftly,'' Matt said. ''I had a big lead from the first run and it didn't make sense to attack the course too much.''
    Raich clocked the fastest second run to jump from seventh to third.
    Manfred Moelgg of Italy, who won the silver medal behind Matt at the World Championship, finished fifth. Bronze medalist Jean-Baptiste Grange of France was eighth.
    Among the skiers who failed to finish the first run were Bode Miller and Jimmy Cochran of the United States and Austrians Manfred Pranger and Rainer Schoenfelder.
    Byggmark finished 12th to retain the lead in downhill standings.
    Svindal was a distant 20th.
    The last time Garmisch hosted a World Cup slalom race was 12 years ago when the winner was Alberto Tomba.

Tough day for U.S. men
    Cochran and Miller — who is battling a sore neck suffered during downhill inspection when he jumped to get out of someone's way — went off course midway through their run. Ted Ligety struggled while Cody Marshall — in his first World Cup — was 39th in the first run after starting 64th while Roger Brown also finished out of the top 30.
    "It was a very tough day, but we had a meeting with the guys after the race," SL/GS head coach Mike Morin said, "and there's no panic. We're not going to focus on evaluating the negatives. We all believe we're doing the right things, and there's a general feeling all the guys are so close to getting back to scoring points and being on the podium and all ...
    "It's not pretty to watch anyone struggle, tough to go through it, but there's no lack of effort, nobody putting in a half an effort, and we'll turn it around," he said. "Kranjska Gora [Slovenia — the next World Cup stop] has been a good hill for us — Jimmy's had his best day there, Bode's won twice there, Ted got his first World Cup points there, so they're feeling upbeat leaving here and heading to a hill where we've had good success."
    The men run a giant slalom Saturday in Kranjska Gora and a slalom Sunday.
 

Sierra Nevada: Schild wins slalom crown       
Sunday, 25 February 2007 

SIERRA NEVADA, Spain — Marlies Schild won a World Cup slalom at Sierra Nevada, Spain, Sunday to take the season discipline title with two races to spare.
    Schild's sixth slalom win of the season came in 1 minute, 43.61 seconds to clinch the slalom crown. The Austrian also moved into the lead in the overall standings.
    ''It's good that she can manage it already here. Now she can ski more relaxed in the remaining slaloms,'' Austria women's head coach Herbert Mandl said. ''It's also important for the overall. If she can win the last two slaloms and also do good in GS, I think she's the favorite.''
    Tanja Poutiainen of Finland was second and Veronika Zuzulova of Slovakia third.
    American Resi Stiegler had been second after the first of two legs but failed to finish the second.
    Schild won six of the seven slaloms held so far this season and was third in the other paving a direct path to her first World Cup title. In the slalom standings, Schild has 660 points. Ana Jelusic of Croatia, who finished fifth Sunday, is next, 332 points behind. Wins are worth 100 points each, so Schild has an insurmountable lead.
    ''My slalom season has really been perfect,'' Schild said.   
    It was the best result of the season for Poutainen, who had won the slalom title in 2005. Zuzulova matched her career best in third, the best-ever results for Slovakia.
    Poutiainen, the 2005 slalom champion, said Schild's key is her consistency.
    ''The balance is there and then it doesn't matter how the slope is or how the conditions are,'' Poutiainen said. ''She's always really fast.''
    The Americans were led by Julia Mancuso, who finished 15th in her worst discipline. She has only been better in slalom once this season. Mancuso is in position to make a run at the World Cup overall title, but Schild regained that with the win, taking a 33-point edge over speed skiing teammate Renate Goetchl. Nicole Hosp, also an Austrian, is third in the standings and finished fourth here to cement her chances. Mancuso is fifth, 93 points behind.
    Schild and Stiegler had been 1-2 in the first run and Stiegler tore down the top half of the 57-gate second run, devouring time and leading by .99 as she passed the lone timing check. But within seconds, she straddled a gate coming out of a flush and lost her bid for the first World Cup top three of her career.

Stiegler takes away positives
    "I was so happy, it's such a nice day out," Stiegler said, adding that in between runs, she "tried to stay focused, stay in my 'now' and not worry about falling or making mistakes, or coming down winning. My mind goes 100 miles an hour, so I just tried to ski like I know I can.
    "Yeah, I wanted to win it and I went for it. I don't have anything to show for it but I've got a lot of positives to take away. And that's the consequences, really — especially in slalom, of putting my heart into it and taking risks."
    Stiegler, who was eighth a week ago in SL at the World Championships in Sweden and whose best World Cup performance has been fourth a couple of times, said she could feel her confidence rising in recent races. Saturday, she started 51st in a giant slalom and finished 10th. "It's been coming along but it's still frustrating to lose this result," she said. "It's a bummer, but I have to move on."
    As she scorched the top of the second run, she went into a combination of gates and straddled as she finished a flush, i.e., several slalom poles in short, rapid-fire sequence. "I went into the flush and I knew I had a lot of speed coming through there," she recalled, "so I was focusing on the next couple of turns, having to get after it ... and I caught my tip as I came out," Stiegler said.
    "The snow was amazing. I haven't seen snow like this all year long," she said. "It was perfect yesterday for the GS — that second run was awesome [as she vaulted from 22nd to 10th with the fifth-fastest run]. But it's been so warm, it's crazy how nice the snow has held up. It's perfect."
    Coach Chris Knight took a step back from the moment and said, "When you haven't had a podium, and you're going for the win — the win, not just a top-three finish, that can happen. Resi has such great speed and she was carrying so much speed that she got caught up ...
    "That's what happens, though, when you're going for a win, taking risks and not just playing it safe. And Resi was definitely going for the win.
    "In the first run, the top half was grippy and it changed for the second run to super, super hard snow, and that's where she got caught because she had so much speed. She's got unreal potential and I think she really could thrive from this result."
    Knight also was amped with Mancuso's second run. Mancuso, whose weakest event is slalom, was first when she came down but was passed by others after her "but she went for it and had an outstanding run."

Schild still chasing Kostelic's slalom mark
    The only slalom races Schild did not win this season came in the World Cup in Semmering, Austria, in December, and the World Championships in Are, Sweden, earlier this month.
    Schild was third in Semmering and won the silver medal at the worlds behind Czech skier Sarka Zahrobska.
    ''A gold in slalom would have been great but Sarka was faster,'' Schild said. ''But now I have the slalom title and also a chance at the overall.''
    Zahrobska finished sixth in her first race as world champion.
    Last season, Schild ended up second in the slalom standings behind Janica Kostelic, who is taking this year off.
    If Schild wins the final two slaloms — in Zwiesel, Germany, on March 11 and at the season finals in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, on March 17 — she can match Kostelic's record of eight slalom victories in 2000-01. Kostelic won all eight in succession, however.
    An Austrian woman had not won the slalom title since Sabine Egger in 1999.
    Olympic champion Anja Paerson missed a gate early in her first run and did not finish. The Swede blamed too sharp skis for her exit.
    ''I had trouble to keep them on the snow,'' Paerson said. ''It was really hard to find the right rhythm.''
    Michaela Kirchgasser, who won Saturday's giant slalom, also skied out in the opening leg.
    Poutiainen has won four slaloms in her career but had not climbed the podium in the discipline in two years.
    ''It's like a victory for me, it's been so long,'' said Poutiainen, who was third in Saturday's giant slalom.
    Zuzulova recorded the third podium finish of her career _ all of them third places. Her coach set the first run.
    ''I was a little tired the second run but I'm on the podium, so I'm happy,'' she said.