GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany, 19 February 2005 — Michael Walchhofer skied a near-flawless run on the difficult Kandahar piste to win a World Cup downhill race yesterday, knocking favorites Hermann Maier and Bode Miller into second and third.
Walchhofer led the Austrian one-two ahead of Miller of the US with a time of one minute 57.79 seconds, 0.99 of a second ahead of Maier on one of the most challenging downhill courses in Alpine skiing.
“It was a very, very good run even if it wasn’t quite perfect,” said Walchhofer, 29. “But I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about anything if I was a whole second ahead of everyone else.”
It was Walchhofer’s second downhill win of the season after triumphing in Wengen in January. He also won a super-G in Val Gardena in December. He had, however, struggled in Garmisch in the past, crashing out in four of his last five races here.
“It’s great to break the jinx,” Walchhofer said. “I was really charging and to win by almost a second is awesome.”
Maier, 32, was looking for his 49th World Cup victory at the southern German resort where he won his first race in 1997. He dazzled the big crowd with an aggressive line down the hill hitting top speeds of 130 kmh (80 mph).
But Maier was knocked off the top of the podium by his compatriot. “Walchhofer was surprisingly good,” said Maier.
Miller, the overall standings leader, made two mistakes that cost him dearly. He made a small error near the start but then negated that with a hard-charge through the midsection of the 3,455-meter long course that has a verticle drop of 960 meters.
Miller was 0.36 second in front of Maier but then made another mistake with his line near the finish, skiing wide and losing time. He ended up 0.14 behind Maier before Walchhofer beat them both moments later.
“I made two significant mistakes that cost me second place,” Miller said. “At the bottom I underestimated my speed and my ski got caught in a bit of soft snow. It’s a very hard course. You’re down in a crouch the whole way down.”
Miller said Walchhofer was in a league of his own yesterday.
“Walchhofer was tough to beat today,” said Miller, who won the men’s downhill at the Bormio world championships. “He had every part of the course down. He skied incredibly well.”
Walchhofer, who leads the World Cup downhill standings with 531 points to Miller’s 438 after eight of 11 races this year, said that the championship was far from settled.
“Miller is very, very good and I can’t afford to let up at all,” Walchhofer said. Miller leads in the overall standings after 26 of 36 events with 1,153 points. Austria’s Benjamin Raich, 11th yesterday, is second with 1,022 points, Maier third with 810 and Walchhofer is fourth with 765.
Garmisch is hosting a second downhill today and a super-G tomorrow. Yesterday’s race was originally scheduled for Kitzbuehel in January, but was moved here due to bad weather.
“I managed to kill two birds with one stone today -- to win Kitzbuehel and Garmisch,” said Walchhofer with a laugh.
