Sunday broke like so many other days in Mammoth this December, with sun, azure-bird skies, and groomed slopes. Held on Mammoth's famous World Cup course, dropping in just off the peak in Cornice Bowl (3179 meters), it travels around Terry's Road and finishes at the bottom of Fascination run near the Main Lodge, losing 460 vertical meters over 1156 meters in length.

	The course

After a bit of a delay for last-minute buffing, riders were topping-out at 60 mph on some damn-long boards by high noon. Winds were consistently in riders' favor as clouds built behind them with each successive run.

Designed in an anti-climatic format-fastest racers going first so they don't have to ride a rutted course, the results were all but in before 90 percent of the field heard the starting beeps. Women's favorite and U.S. team rider Sondra Van Ert of Ketchum, ID, posted the winning time of 1:42.77 on a virtually untouched course.

"It's a whole different thing when the ground is going by you so fast," she said, citing the speedy nature of Super G versus giant slalom. "You have to look ahead of yourself and try to [mentally] slow things down."

"You have to look ahead of yourself and try to [mentally] slow things down..."— Sondra Van Ert

Van Ert, 35, became the only rider to have medaled in all three FIS World Championships when she captured the bronze in GS a year ago. She heads back to a snowy Idaho $10,000 richer.

The women's field was rounded-out by U.S. teammates Lisa Kosglow of Boise, ID, with a time of 1:43.25, and Stacia Hookum of Edwards, CO, with a 1:45.30. Hookum was moved up to the podium after it was discovered that Canadian Ivana Trundel missed a gate.

Kosglow's slower time was attributed to "some mistakes on the top section," where many racers caught unwanted air off some knolls. "But I tried to be as clean as possible on the flats," she continued. "I nailed the bottom section."

	Ian Price

Setting fastest time of the day (1:33.58), Ian Price took a fat check back to a warm and dry Manchester, VT, followed by Canadian Mark Fawcett (1:34.24) in second and U.S. team rider Jeff Greenwood of Granby, CT, in third with a 1:35.58.

The super-G lives on in Breckenridge, January 9, 2000.

— Rob Reed, from the Couch for MountainZone.com