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Are, Sweden
February 20, 2000
Women's Slalom
Spela Pretnar may have celebrated her most important slalom victory today in Are, where she beat all the other favorites for the fourth time this season and after a reckless second run.
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 Pretnar |
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Spela Pretnar is incredibly bold. No other skier on the women's tour is able to achieve the same kind of gutsy second runs than the Slovenian, who will turn 27 on March 5th. She has won most of her races starting from the back, including last week in Santa Caterina where she placed 3rd, behind Bakke and Saioni.
Last year, she won her first slalom here after clocking only the 9th best time in the first run. During that race, she charged the second run with incredible determination, but she was also nonchalant, since she was still depressed after her failure at the World Championships in Vail, where she had straddled a gate while fighting for gold.
In fact, she nearly turned down the chance to race this year. She didn't attend spring training camps last year because she was planning to retire and study business in the US. Fortunately, her coaches were able to convince her to change her mind.
"It was definitely a good move - I'm so happy now to have changed my mind" she said. "I don't really know what's happening with me, I never thought I'd win four races in the same winter. It's amazing," she added.
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| "Now I feel sure and relaxed and I'm able to ski as I want. It's fun to move at your limits. I was not thinking about the World Cup title before the race of the second run, I just wanted to be as focused and aggressive as possible...." — Spela Pretnar (SLO) |
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"Now I feel sure and relaxed and I'm able to ski as I want. It's fun to move at your limits. I was not thinking about the World Cup title before the race of the second run, I just wanted to be as focused and aggressive as possible. I have more experience than Christel Saioni in this field. I'm having a great time but the fight is not over yet. There is one last slalom at Bormio and I better remain concentrated until the end. I like to race there because I won my very first World Cup race there back in 1995."
At Bormio, Kristina Koznick will also aim for victory. The US skier, who flew back home after the Swedish race, feels very confident again, after two good races in a row. She was 4th in Santa Caterina before today's 2nd place. She only lost 3/100 of a second on Christel Saioni in the first run and she attacked the course with great momentum in the afternoon.
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"I felt able to go for the victory this time and I skied pretty well," she said. "But, Spela is incredible in her second runs, she has a lot of confidence in her. I'm really pleased because I'm coming back from far away.
"I was down for a long time in the early part of the season because I was not able to find my best rhythm in slalom with the new shorts skis. I kept switching types until two weeks ago. Finally, I decided to stick with the same model and to concentrate on my technique. I trained very hard for two weeks on them and I was back again. My 4th place in Santa Caterina was a strong boost for my confidence. I aim now for more. It's just too bad that the slalom from Zwiesel can't be rescheduled."
Norway's Trine Bakke, another contender for the slalom World Cup trophy, straddled one of the last gates in the first run and France's Christel Saioni was not able to retain her lead from the first run. Saioni finished a far 4th after making a major mistake in the final part of the course after clocking a fast intermediate time, as well. She only set the 16th best time in that second run and is now 55 points behind Pretnar.
There is only one more slalom confirmed on the World Cup schedule, which will take place during the finals in Bormio. The International Ski Federation (FIS) has not found another area to replace the technical races cancelled last month in Germany's Zwiesel.
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 Koznick |
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An hour after Spela's sixth career success, another Slovenian triumph was celebrated by this country of only two million inhabitants, as Matjaz Vrhovnik won the slalom at Adelboden, beating Norway's Kjetil Aamodt. He is also in the race for the slalom World Cup title.
Two other Americans scored points today, as Caroline Lalive and Erik Schloppy both claimed the 16th place in their race.
The next women's races, two super Gs and a downhill, are planned from Friday to Sunday in Innsbruck, the main town in Tyrol.
The speed skiers will compete for the first time on Patscherkofel mountain, on the famous Olympic run where Austrian Franz Klammer's set records back in 1976. In December 1998, a men's super G took place there, and nine Austrians finished ahead of the race that day.
— Patrick Lang, MountainZone.com World Cup Correspondent