SCHLADMING, Austria — We raced the famous Schladming night slalom last Tuesday and I was very happy to finish sixth. It was my best slalom result since last season, and after skiing so poorly in the Kitzbuehel slalom two days earlier, to turn around and have a good slalom race was a step in the right direction.
It gave me a confidence boost in slalom when I needed it, and shows that I’m not terrible at slalom, I just had an off day in Kitzbuehel.
The atmosphere in Schladming was crazy, as usual. They said there were 45,000 people there.
But they did widen the trail where the race is held, so the spectators who line the course were farther away than they used to be and made it feel like there weren’t as many as usual.
Security was pretty tight and there was a lot of apprehension because of a controversy involving Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic, who is leading the overall standings, and Austria’s Marcel Hirscher, who is in second place. Apparently they heard a bunch of Croatian fans were going to cause some sort of ruckus.
Hirscher straddled a gate in a race he won in Zagreb on Jan. 5. Race officials didn’t catch him straddling, which would have resulted in disqualification if they had. Felix Neureuther of Germany also straddled, but he wasn’t disqualified, either. Kostelic finished third, and nobody found out about the straddles until a couple days later.
Kostelic was pretty harsh on them for not admitting they straddled, saying, “It’s just one race, but the shame lasts forever.” It got a lot of people fired up.
I actually straddled in Zagreb and got away with it too, finishing 14th. Straddling is becoming more and more common, because there’s so much less margin for error in slalom than there used to be. I actually think they should allow straddling. The fastest guy down should win, and straddling never makes you faster. It always throws your timing off or kicks your ski up in the air or causes something else that costs you time.
Ligety, a three-time World Cup giant slalom champion, reports regularly in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer.
