Super G, Women

Only one day after the men’s race the women’s Super G was held on Saturday 20 February, as scheduled. There was only one favorite and it was Lindsey Vonn. She was the reigning world champion in Super G, won the Super G World Cup in 2008-09 and led in 2009-10 (only one race left) by winning the last three Super G’s before the Olympics, and showed top form by winning the gold medal in the downhill back on Wednesday and also winning the downhill of the Super Combined a few days before. Julia Mancuso, after winning two silver medals (downhill and combined), and Maria Riesch, after winning the gold medal in the combined, had to be considered contenders. Riesch also won the Super G on 23 February 2008 which was held as part of the World Cup Super Combined on this course. Still a question mark was the remarkable Anja Pärson (2007 World Champion) after her bad crash in the downhill. The medalists from 2006 Michaela Dorfmeister (gold) and Janica Kostelić (silver) both retired shortly after Torino while Alexandra Meissnitzer (bronze) retired in 2008, but Meissnitzer followed the race as an expert for Austrian television and raced the course before the event with a camera.

The race was held under perfect sunny and warm weather with temperatures between 3° (start) and 6° (finish) and was opened by Julia Mancuso at 10:00 AM. She had a comfortable lead by more than seven tenth of a seconds, but did not ski well through “Frog’s Bank”, when Maria Riesch started. Riesch started slowly but finished strong to take the lead, moving Mancuso into second. It looked like a very close race, when the first of the top group Elisabeth Görgl, winner of a World Cup Super G earlier in the season, started. On her 29th birthday, Görgl had bad luck at the start, when she was not able to catch her left pole and lost a tenth of a second on the flat start. But Görgl skied well and when she crossed the finish line she took the lead, 0.32 seconds in front of Riesch. With bib number 17 Lindsey Vonn started and, as expected, led at all splits and took the lead by 0.26 seconds. But it would not last long. Andrea Fischbacher (third in the Super G World Cup in 2008-09 and bronze medalist at the 2009 World Championships) with number 19 sped down the course and took the lead by 0.74 seconds at the finish. Pärson with start number 21 did not contend for a medal so Tina Maze was the last of the top group. She skied a great race which brought her silver, 0.25 seconds in front of Vonn.

Fischbacher, who finished fourth in Wednesday’s downhill, won the first Alpine skiing gold medal for Austria at the Vancouver Games by using downhill skis. Although a bit of a surprise, she had finished second to Vonn in the last World Cup Super G prior the Games. Fischbacher won with Atomic, Maze won the first medal for Stöckli with silver, and Vonn earned the seventh medal at this Olympics for Head skis.