Beaver Creek – Getting ready to settle into the starting gate for a World Cup downhill Friday, Daron Rahlves heard a voice he knows well.
It was teammate and chief on-slope tormentor Bode Miller, yapping about how he planned to “rip this hill apart.” Not that Rahlves needed much more motivation, but he said hearing those words did the trick. Taking advantage of a course shortened at the top because of a mix of wind, fog and snow, Rahlves posted the day’s fastest time, then watched Miller come up just short, giving the United States a 1-2 downhill finish on the Birds of Prey course for the second straight year.
The difference: In 2004, it was Miller who was first on this mountain, Rahlves second – a scenario that played out elsewhere, too, last season.
“For sure, it’s a struggle. You want to do well as a team, but I’m not putting in all this effort in to finish behind anybody else over and over again,” Rahlves said.
“It’s nice when you can trade off.”
At 5-feet-9 and 185 pounds, Rahlves doesn’t have the size to power through flat sections of a course, so he was thrilled when the first 200 yards or so were eliminated.
Organizers did that because of the bad weather that also led to several halts in the competition when heavy fog rolled in between the pines dotting the piste.
“That’s where I lost the race last year to Bode – at the top,” Rahlves said. “I said last night that if they drop the start, it’s mine. And I stepped it up.”
He finished in 1 minute, 13.37 seconds. Miller was 0.27 back, after a terrific start and a slower finish.
“It was tight. Bode was scaring me at the bottom. He was skiing really well, too,” Rahlves said. “That’s good to see, the two of us on the same team, challenging each other for the win.”
Austrians finished third and fourth, with Hans Grugger followed by Fritz Strobl, who won the season-opening downhill at Lake Louise, Alberta, last weekend.
Miller was 22nd in that race, 18th in a super-G the next day, then failed to finish Thursday’s super-G at Beaver Creek, blaming goggles that iced up and made it tough to see.
He began last season by winning four of the first five races and six of 10 en route to becoming the first American since 1983 to win the overall World Cup title.
