BEAVER CREEK — Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal figured he had taken his revenge on the highly regarded Birds of Prey race course — for the second day in a row, no less — but he needed to make sure before he started celebrating.
“You think you know, but you never know,” Svindal said Saturday after winning his second World Cup race in two days, this one a super-G. “Always look at the board. You look like a fool if you’re celebrating and you’re a second back.”
On a course where he was badly injured last year in a downhill training mishap — it’s a big hit on YouTube — Svindal edged Marco Buechel of Lichtenstein in Friday’s downhill. Saturday he won by .45 seconds over Hermann Maier of Austria, who won the season’s first super-G last week at Lake Louise, Alberta.
Svindal may have started the season in comeback mode, but that’s behind him now.
“For sure I wasn’t expecting to win twice in two days,” Svindal said. “I wanted to make the podium and show that I could be back and fight for the top three positions.”
Ted Ligety was the top American at seventh, a career best in super-G for the slalom/giant slalom specialist.
Svindal came here last year as the reigning World Cup overall champion but did a backflip off the Golden Eagle jump at an estimated 70 mph. He broke several bones in his face and suffered 6-inch long, 2-inch deep laceration in his buttocks.
Doctors at the Vail Valley Medical Center were concerned his intestines might have been damaged by the laceration — X-rays were inconclusive — so they opened his abdomen to make sure.
“I guess it was hard to see, and if something was wrong, then my life would be in danger,” said Svindal, who made a point of visiting the hospital to thank his doctors when he got here last week. “So they cut my stomach open to check it out. That’s very cheap insurance to make sure I was not going to pass away in the next couple of weeks.”
Svindal has put himself back in the race for the World Cup overall title — he’s in first place with 285 points after six races and Maier is second with 216 — but he learned two years ago it’s better not to spend a lot of time thinking about that.
“To be thinking about the overall for three months drains your energy,” Svindal said, “so I’m going to enjoy this, and we’ll see what happens with that overall thing.”
Defending overall champion Bode Miller crashed in Friday’s downhill and nearly crashed Saturday, falling on his left side and then his right before gathering himself to finish 14th.
“I’m a little bit sore,” said Miller, who blamed changing snow conditions for his downfall.
But as often happens, many were amazed he finished as fast as he did, given his mistakes.
“I think he just took some chances up top and tried to ski a little too direct, maybe pinched off a turn or two, and it caught up to him — with some pretty super-human recoveries,” said his former coach, John McBride of Snowmass. “Not everyone could have pulled that off.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com
SKIING
Men’s World Cup
super-G
At the Birds of Prey Course
Beaver Creek
1, Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway, 1 minute, 13.05 seconds. 2, Hermann Maier, Austria, 1:13.50. 3, Michael Walchhofer, 1:13.63. 4, Christof Innerhofer, Italy, 1:13.74. 5, Didier Defago, Switzerland, 1:13.76. 6, John Kucera, Canada, 1:13.80. 7, Ted Ligety, USA, 1:13.90. 7, Benjamin Raich, Austria, 1:13.90. 9, Ales Gorza, Slovakia, 1:13.97. 10, Hannes Reichelt, Austria, 1:13.98.
11, Georg Streitberger, Austria, 1:14.01. 12, Peter Fill, Italy, 1:14.04. 13, Erik Guay, Canada, 1:14.09. 14, Bode Miller, USA, 1:14.29. 15, Ivica Kostelic, Croatia, 1:14.33. 16, Christoph Gruber, Austria, 1:14.38. 16, Tobias Gruenenfelder, Switzerland, 1:14.38. 18, Marc Berthod, Switzerland, 1:14.41. 19, Kjetil Jansrud, Norway, 1:14.46. 20, Marco Buechel, Liechtenstein, 1:14.49
World Cup standings
1, Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway, 285. 2, Hermann Maier, Austria, 216. 3, Daniel Albrecht, Switzerland, 185. 4, Michael Walchhofer, Austria, 175. 5, Didier Defago, Switzerland, 162. 6, Peter Fill, Italy, 159. 7, Didier Cuche, Switzerland, 156. 8, Erik Guay, Canada, 142. 9, Bode Miller, USA, 139. 10, Carlo Janka, Switzerland, 130.
11, Jean-Baptiste Grange, France, 122. 12, John Kucera, Canada, 120. 13, Marco Buechel, Liechtenstein, 116. 14, Klaus Kroell, Austria, 113. 15, Christof Innerhofer, Italy, 112. 16, Ted Ligety, USA, 105. 17, Benjamin Raich, Austria, 93. 18, Georg Streitberger, Austria, 79. 19, Christoph Gruber, Austria, 78. 20, Ivica Kostelic, Croatia, 77.
