FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Bormio

Klaus Kroell was the most consistent racer of the season and he fully deserves the downhill crystal cup. The Austrian, during the season 2011/12, has never placed worse than eighth in the 11 runs completed.

Two wins, Chamonix and Kvitfjell, three podium finishes in Beaver Creek, Bormio, Kitzbuehel. On the Stelvio has lost his chances with an error a few hundred meters from the finish, but his was a great race anyway.

The downhill podium includes rising star Beat Feuz, who in Bormio did not finish the race, and third ended the season, and career, Didier Cuche, who this year won three times.

11 races for a total of 33,247 km. The fastest of the season was  Kroell that took 20 minutes, 30 seconds and 48 cents to finish the season downhills. An average just over 97 km/h.

Here is the complete ranking of the top athletes who have finished all the races on the program:

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Klaus Kroell // Ale Trovati/Pentaphoto

Two races took place on the Piste Verte di Les Houches in Chamonix . The first was the one that had been cancelled in Val Gardena and was won by Klaus Kroell, who has finally caught the long pursued objective. The Austrian racer beat Bode Miller (by less than 0.01 seconds) and Didier Cuche (+0.04). Baumann and Guay, the two racers in fourth place are not much slower…just +0.08!

The second race took place on Saturday, when the Canadian team did great things in the cold weather: Jan Hudec placed first, Eric Guay third and Benjamin Thomsen fifth. The even numbers are for Romed Baumann and Beat Feuz.

The eighth race of the season and the very little gaps have stimulated the members of the editorial staff; they made a research through ski-db.com and asked themselves: Who would be the fastest (at the moment) in an ideal “stage race”, if we added up the times of each single race?

If we take this fact into consideration, the result is somehow surprising: the racers who finished all eight races covered 23 km and 805 m.

Here is the top 20. The list takes only the racers who completed all the eight races into consideration.

Didier Cuche (Ale Trovati/Pentaphoto)

Didier Cuche hasn’t been distracted by his announced retirement from racing at the end of the season and after he enjoyed great success at Lake Louise and Kitzbuehel, he won a first place in Garmisch too. Officials were forced to move the starting gate of the Super-G because of very low clouds and the race was halved. This is the 20th victory in the career for the Swiss champion, who 100% understood the track and took revenge against Erik Guay, the one who placed first before him in the DH World Cup last year. This time the Canadian is second at 0.27 seconds, while Hannes Reichelt is third at 0.30 seconds. Read the rest of this entry »

Didier Cuche // (Shin Tanaka/Pentaphoto)

We had in mind to tell an adventurous story from Tyrol last weekend but, unfortunately, water, snow and fog ruined the most classic race and the Streif slope in Kitzbühel looked just like a pale, misty and hasty postcard.

The track? Just a little more than two kilometers. The race? Just a little more than one minute. A few of the most interesting spots of the stunning Austrian course were cancelled. The result was a race for sprinters and the first place on the podium, oh yes, the most important place on the podium was for a real man, a real champion: Didier Cuche! Read the rest of this entry »

Beat Feuz's downhill race. (Pentaphoto/Shin Tanaka)

Beat Feuz is the winner in Wengen, the fourth downhill race of the season and one of the great classics. The young Swiss dominated on the interminable Lauberhorn slope and beat the Austrian Hannes Reichelt for 44 centiseconds and a recovered Christof Innerhofer for 49 centiseconds.

Carlo Janka, Bode Miller, Klaus Kroell and seventh place  Peter Fill couldn’t make it to the podium.

Feuz got his victory thanks to the amazing lines on the Minsch-kante, which allowed him to build up speed to face the road in the best way. Actually, Beat was impeccable all the way. Feuz didn’t shine in Bormio, he fell during the race and after two poor training races, but the young ace of the Swiss team is rising above the others and is becoming one of the racers to beat in the future.

Twelve times in the top ten in his career. The racer from Bern captured three first place finishes,  three second place finishes and two third place finishes! Taking these few numbers into consideration you can tell he’s got what it takes! Read the rest of this entry »

www.lauberhorn.ch

The Lauberhorn in Wengen and the Hahnenkamm in Kitzbuehel. These are the great classics of January, the races that bring back the emotions linked to high speed and downhill.

After the race on the Stelvio slope, which is pure adrenaline, the most exciting, brutal and tiring race of the White Circus, here we are with the longest, fastest and most ‘panoramic’ downhill of the circuit. The Stelvio is 3270 meters long, with a drop of 1010 meters, while the course inserted in the mountains of the Bernese Oberland is 4415 meters long, with a drop of 1028 meters and speed peaks of approximately 150 km/hr! Read the rest of this entry »

Few but important words emerge from the website of Didier Defago, the winner of the men’s DH that took place in Bormio on December 29, 2011. “Ton travail a payé, bravo Didier.” The “travail” is the hard work that brought Didier to the complete recovery after the injury that caused the tearing of the ligaments in his left knee, forcing Defago to withdraw from the 2010/2011 races. In one of the photos of our galley, Defago touches his knee while in the finish area. Later, during the press conference, the Swiss champion explained it was a sign of gratitude full of meaning.

Didier Defago

Patrick Kueng, second place, writes on his blog that 2011 couldn’t end better. He’s the second Swiss on the podium of Bormio 2011 and he’s extremely happy with his result, especially because he considers the Stelvio as one of the most difficult courses in the world (no news actually as many other athletes share his view.)

Kueng Patrick

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Didier Defago, primo classificato Bormio 2011 - Credits//AP Photo/Alessandro

The Austrians and the Swiss are traditionally the best DH racers. The Austrians feature 165 victories, the Swiss 110 (today they are 111) while France follows the (at a long distance) with 28 victories.

These were the data before the race on the Stelvio in Bormio, a course that has always been ruled by the Austrian Eagles. They have won 12 times here, while the Swiss have never succeeded in doing that. It has always been a “zero victories” for them.

The 1985 World Cup and Zurbriggen’s flamboyant victories were like a black and white picture. But today the Swiss team got it all with two athletes on the podium. Didier Defago is first and Patrick Kueng second, followed by Klaus Kroell, the fastest in yesterday’s training.

It was a dream race for Defago. The snow was just what he likes the most, not too hard and right to be bitten with the edges (but without exaggeration). Defago won in a row in Kitzbuehel and Wengen in January 2009. He later triumphed at the Winter Games in Vancouver. The joy of those victories finished brutally a few months later, when a bad injury forced him to stop the ski season. Read the rest of this entry »

Dominik Paris is the best of the Italian team and he says he could do much better…