Deserved victory of Tina Weirather

Alpine Ski World Cup, Super G Women, 14.12.2013, St. Moritz

It was not quite enough for Lara Gut today. In bright weather in St. Moritz, she was unable to overtake the two leading Austrians Görgl and Hosp, but she blew away the quartet of Austrian leaders and moved ahead of Schmidhofer and Sterz. She thus made it from 16th place on the grid to third intermediate place. At the first intermediate time she was already more than three tenths behind the leader Elisabeth Görgl, which she could not make up in the lower part of the course. She finished 0.2 seconds behind the leader Görgl.

Deserved victory for Weirather
But everything was to be different when Tina Weirather left the start house after Lara Gut and, with her soulful manner, produced an almost perfect run. No skidding, no drifting, no braking, no dusting and in the end she overtook the leading Görgl by 0.92 seconds and thus put a clear exclamation mark. Weirather has been racing at the front all season, four podiums in five finished races are excellent. Now she has finally done it: her first World Cup victory this season, the second in her career.

Tina Maze & Maria Höfl-Riesch in bad luck
Tina Maze, on the other hand, had a very bad day, the jet leg must have affected her, she missed a goal that she could still have reached and gave up, incomprehensible. Had she already realized that she would not make it to the top because of her mistake and therefore gave up? At the moment things are really not going well for her. Maria Höfl-Riesch will also be annoyed, leading at the first intermediate time, she lost her grip and braked badly in the turn, which she could not make up for. In the end the result was 8th place, one hundredth of a second behind Lara Gut.

The results of the Swiss women
The other Swiss women did mediocre: in 14th place Fränzi Aufdenblatten, in 15th place Dominique Gisin, that is not what was hoped for. A big disappointment is the 26th place of Fabienne Suter, who is one of the seven top seeded racers and thus still ranked behind Priska Nufer in 21st place. In the end, Lara Gut was once again by far the best Swiss skier, today with final 7th place. In an interview with Swiss TV, Lara Gut said that a place in the top 10 is good, you have to stay on the ground, today she was too strong on the ski, but tomorrow awaits the giant slalom, new chance.

Austrian dominance
The coaches of the other teams must be concerned about the clear dominance of the Austrian skiers. Up to the high starting numbers there were five Austrians in the top 10 with Fenninger, Görgl, Hosp, Schmidhofer and Sterz. Only the surprise results of Mowinckel and Kling were able to prevent this.

Two surprise riders
As a rule, spectators tend not to have great expectations of the upcoming riders after bib number 30. The best are through, you think. But this was to be completely overturned today by two racers. On the one hand there was the Norwegian Ragnhild Mowinckel, who started from position 36 on the grid and ended up on position 10, and on the other hand there was the Swede Kajsa Kling, who started from position 44 on the grid and made it to the podium with a fabulous run and finished in 2nd place. She could hardly believe it herself, but it was not so completely unexpected considering that she finished in the top ten twice a week earlier in Lake Louise. She seems to be a clear discovery of the season, after all, in the past years she bumbled around in the back ranks between 20th and 50th place. Is she a Swedish hope? And the Norwegian also attracted attention in Beaver Creek with an 8th place in the giant slalom. The conditions should definitely be kept in mind.

Ranking list Super G, Ladies, St. Moritz, 14.12.2013

1. Tina Weirather (LIE), 1:17.38
2. Kajsa Kling (SWE), 1:17.69
3rd Anna Fenninger (AUT), 1:17.77
4th Elisabeth Görgl (AUT), 1:18.30
5. Nicole Hosp (AUT), 1:18.35
6th Marie-Michele Gagnon (CAN), 1:18.42
7. Lara Gut (SUI), 1:18.50
8th Maria Hoefl-Riesch (GER), 1:18.51
9th Tessa Worley (FRA), 1:18.53
10th Ragnhild Mowinckel (NOR), 1:18.72

Watch live individual rides of the TV broadcasts of Swiss television
Profile Lara Gut
Profile Dominique Gisin

Lara Gut struggles with herself in the finish area

Super drive of Kajsa Kling from start number 44 to podium position 2

Podium from left to right: Kajsa Kling, Tina Weirather, Anna Fenninger