KITZBUEHEL, Austria — I made it down safely in my first Hahnenkamm downhill, and that’s something of a success in itself.
I watched television coverage of the first few racers before I went to the start house and was horrified to see teammate Scott Macartney crash hard on the Zeilschuss jump just above the finish. It was pretty traumatic for me and the other racers who saw it.
Mac lost control coming off the jump and slammed his head on the ground when he landed. His helmet came off and he slid through the finish line. When he came to a stop, he was unconscious, twitching in the snow. For all we knew, he was dead. A helicopter rushed him to a hospital.
Getting ready to run your first Hahnenkamm downhill and seeing something like that happen to a good friend is tough. We just were praying he was alive. We heard when we got to the finish line that he would be OK — he suffered a severe concussion — but that didn’t help us in the starting gate.
To stand there and know you’re about to run this gnarly course where this guy really hurt himself is a pretty traumatic thing — especially considering he’s an experienced downhiller and I’m not.
I actually felt fairly comfortable after the first couple of downhill training runs, but there was plenty of carnage in training as well. Three guys broke legs in training runs. Guys like Didier Cuche (who won the downhill) and Marco Buechel (who won the super-G) said the course was the bumpiest they had seen in Kitzbuehel in a long time. For me to make it through that week, finishing 34th in the super-G and 43rd in downhill, was good.
Despite my lack of experience in the Hahnenkamm downhill, it does help me in that it takes a lot of technical ability, and that plays to my strength.
Tonight we have another highlight of the World Cup schedule, a slalom under the lights in Schladming, Austria. For a slalom to have 40,000 to 60,000 spectators, with people packed 10 deep all the way around the starting gate, is unique.
It’s pretty intense, because we’re not used to having spectators around us up at the start. To have people at the start, yelling your name and screaming at you when you are trying to do your start routine is unusual. It’s a pretty steep hill, and the finish line is right in the center of town.
It’s mayhem in the crowd. It’s just this huge party, there are flares going off, everybody has a flag, just total craziness.
Ted Ligety, the Olympic combined champion, reports regularly from the World Cup ski tour in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer.
