Ski Club Vail’s Lindsey Vonn, who leads the World Cup overall standings and the downhill standings, reports regularly from the tour in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer.
ST. ANTON, Austria — I went into the Christmas break on a high with wins in both races during the weekend, a downhill and a super-combined (downhill and slalom) in St. Anton, the birthplace of alpine skiing.
The downhill course is the one the men used at the 2001 world championships. They’re hoping to turn that venue into the Kitzbuehel of the women’s tour.
It’s certainly one of the most difficult downhills the women have run, if not the most difficult. It’s amazing, because you’re never sitting there in a tuck, doing nothing. It’s very technical and it has a lot of terrain. You’re always concentrating, you’re always working. I really want to run it again.
I hope they keep it on the World Cup tour and it does become the Kitzbuehel of the women’s circuit, because it has that kind of appeal. There’s a lot of spectators, there’s a lot of action in the course and it makes for a really great combination.
It’s at the opposite extreme from a glider’s course like Lake Louise. In Lake Louise, you get in a tuck and you don’t have to concentrate that hard, you’re just kind of skiing. At St. Anton, right away from the first gate it’s icy, there’s terrain and you have to be right on line, right away. It never lets up, it’s always turning. You have to be moving and active. You can never really relax. You have to stay ahead of the course.
The atmosphere was amazing, one of the craziest scenes I’ve witnessed. When I finished the awards ceremony Saturday, I had three security guards surrounding me with one guy from my sponsor, Red Bull. All these kids and people were just screaming. I gave my flower bouquet to this girl and she just about fainted. She was screaming like I’ve never heard anyone scream. It was like a rock concert. I’ve never had that before. It was really chaotic.
It doesn’t hurt that I represent an Austrian company. Red Bull is a very coveted sponsorship over here. They take that as Austrian branding. It also helps that the home base for the U.S. women in Europe is in Kirchberg, just outside of Kitzbuehel. They always want to find some Austrian connection, and then they can cheer for you.
I’m spending Christmas with my best friend on the World Cup, German racer Maria Riesch, and her family in Garmisch. Maria was on the podium with me and Julia Mancuso in the St. Anton super-combined.
