On the women’s side, the big names fared well, but not at headline level as the World Cup got under way on the glacier at Sölden. Defending overall and GS champ Nicole Hosp was a second off the pace and overall runner-up Marlies Schild was further back. Anja Paerson was seventh, about nine tenths back. Although 2007 GS runner-up Tanja Poutiainen won the first run, she, too, wound up off the podium distilling most predictions to waste.
    Really, it was Julia Mancuso who did best among the projected contenders with a second-place result. That was the U.S. media story in a nutshell, although the national story should have sent some focus onto Lindsey Vonn. She finished 13th, so few found it noteworthy, but that result was just her fourth in GS in seven seasons of World Cup racing and was her second-best finish ever in the discipline. This result heightens the anticipation for her favored disciplines.
    For media off the continent the bigger story was Italian Denise Karbon. She did, after all, win the race. Topping that, her story is a classic of overcoming hardships. The Sparrow from Kastelruth — as some call her — has struggled mightily over her career. It was her first win since December of 2003. Basically, this looks to be her first season since then as well.
    She did race a bit in 2006, but her injuries have been myriad and catastrophic. Five serious accidents have kept her from fulfilling her promise. She came back from a 1993 crash to finish second in the 2004 GS standings. Then she crashed again ahead of the ’05 season and missed out on the chance to compete for both that crown and the World Championships of 2005 scheduled in her home country. At the end of ’07 she again fell to a leg injury as well as 1998 and 2002 injuries. That she is racing at all is amazing. That she is so talented she can still win is stunning.
    But the widely missed story of the women’s race was of the young Frenchwoman Tessa Worley. Consider: She was only days into her 18th year; It was just her fourth career World Cup start; She skied her way from the 46th start to 23rd after the first run; and from 23rd to fifth in the second. This happened on a nasty, sneaky set of courses on tricky glacier snow that troubled more than a few veterans. This is the way great skiers tend to first show up, i.e. early in life and from deep in the pack. She could turn out to be a flash. Certainly her Europa Cup results did not indicate this type of greatness. But if she does turn out to be the next great French star, Sölden will be where it all started.
    On the guys’ side of things the expected did the expected. As Benjamin Raich told Austrian reporters, “Nothing is new.” Which is to say Aksel Svindal — the guy who won three races at the Finals to claim the World Cup title last season, the guy who won two championships at worlds — put down a second run clearly demonstrating he was the best on the day.
     It goes much deeper than Svindal at No. 1. Look at the top five in last season’s GS standings: Svindal, and then No. 2 Massimiliano Blardone, who was fourth after the first run. No. 3 Benjamin Raich was fourth at the finish. No. 4 Kalle Palander finished third. No. 5 Francois Bourque finished 14th but had been seventh after the first run. No. 6 Bode Miller finished fifth, even after a horrendous first run. This is a tough group to break into.
    Frenchman Thomas Fanara did post seventh from the 24th start; his second-best result ever. Austria’s Mattias Lanzinger got 10th from the 37th start. That is his third-best result ever and his best GS result, which had to make the Austrian coaches happy as they had been lamenting the team’s lack of GS performance beyond Raich.
    For the U.S. Ted Ligety in second was the focus of race fans and writers well beyond these shores. He was eighth in last season’s GS standings, and fourth at worlds, so he wasn’t a big surprise, but it appears, especially after that first-run lead, he may have made up some ground over the off-season. And having second in both the women’s race and the men’s automatically makes it a good start for USA — arguably the best opening weekend ever.
    For the staunch Bode fans — think Franconia Mania — Miller was equally impressive. His first run mired him down the list in 17th place. His second was so fast he sat in first through 11 racers, until Svindal came down. In short, he looks faster than ever and that’s bad news for the rest of the tour. Maybe the most exciting of all: he finished both runs. Bode is out of the blocks in good fashion.
    And one more thing: at least for GS it does not appear any one ski company will have a stranglehold this season. Combining men and women Atomic collected 210 points, Rossignol 205 and Fischer 200. It can’t get a whole lot closer than that.
    The season is under way. 

    
By Hank McKee    
Monday, 29 October 2007 
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