BEAVER CREEK, Colorado, 7 December 2003 — American Daron Rahlves swooped down the Birds of Prey piste to win a men’s World Cup Alpine skiing downhill before his home crowd on Friday.
The former super-G world champion beat overall World Cup champion Stephan Eberharter of Austria and Norwegian Bjarne Solbakken, who tied in second place, by 0.69 of a second for the fifth win of his World Cup career.
Austrian world champion Michael Walchhofer, winner of the season’s first downhill in Lake Louise, was fourth.
Rahlves clocked a time of one minute 39.59 seconds down the challenging Birds of Prey layout becoming the first American to win a World Cup downhill on home snow since Billy Johnson in Aspen in March 1984. A quick glance at Rahlves career shows that the former-jet ski racer prefers the challenging mountains, with two of his four previous downhill wins coming on the World Cup’s most difficult courses — Kitzbuehel and Bormio.
Rahlves’ dominating performance will make him a big favorite for the second of back-to-back downhills followed by a super-G today.
Austrian Hermann Maier, the double Olympic champion who celebrates his 31st birthday today after winning a super-G in the Canadian resort of Lake Louise last week, finished a strong fifth.
Maier had not raced on one of the World Cup’s most challenging slopes for three years due to leg injuries sustained in a life-threatening motorcycle accident two seasons ago.
But the former-bricklayer suddenly finds himself sitting second in the overall standings behind Walchhofer and in the hunt for a fourth overall crown.
American Bode Miller, runner-up in the overall World Cup last year and winner of two races so far this season, crashed out spectacularly.
The giant slalom and combined world champion lost his balance coming out of the compression in the Abyss jump and shot high into the air before careering through a gate and into the catch fences. He picked himself up and reached the finish on one ski, apparently unhurt.
Montillet Wins Again in Lake Louise
In Lake Louise, Canada, Olympic champion Carole Montillet won the first women’s downhill of the season on Friday to add another Lake Louise World Cup trophy to last year’s collection.
The French skier, also a winner in the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort last year, pushed Germany’s Hilde Gerg off the top step of the podium with a time of one minute and 34.03 seconds.
American Kirsten Clark placed third in the first race of a double-downhill and super-G weekend.
All three racers mounted the podium in the same race for the second consecutive year but it was Montillet, 30, who wore the biggest grin to go with the red leader’s bib she will wear in downhill. Montillet placed first and second in downhills here last year and was third in the super-G.
Gerg, 28, felt ecstasy and agony at Lake Louise last year, winning the first downhill before badly injuring her knee a day later.
On Friday she skied through her danger zone and fell short on the clock by just 16 hundredths of a second.
Clark, who placed third in the overall downhill standings last year, skied a technically solid race just three-tenths back and lost out to Montillet on the bottom flats.
Hometown favorite Emily Brydon, who placed in the top five in all three training runs, carried Canada’s hopes but could manage only a 25th place.
“I know I can do more and it’s just a matter of time. I want my revenge and I know what I can do and I’m going to deliver,” she said.
“I had such good training runs that I needed to be brought back to reality. I’ll take this as a learning step and go for it again tomorrow.”
Italian Isolde Kostner, the two-time overall World Cup downhill champion who won four races at Lake Louise before suffering a concussion here in a crash last season, was 29th. “I was bad today,” she said. “The sight was bad and I was bad.”
