Zagreb Adelboden Wengen
Alpine men jostle for the overall World Cup — and an Olympic team spot — at Zagreb,
Adelboden and Wengen; Lizeroux, Miller and Janka are on fire BY HANK MCKEE
Zagreb
He who wins January, it is said, wins the World Cup. But locked within the
2010 World Cup is another type of competition where teammates go toe-to-
toe to win a coveted Olympic team spot. By a quirk of the schedule makers,
there was just one GS but six slaloms in January to help settle those scores.
The first of the slaloms was as unusual and marvelous as the World Cup has
to offer. Zagreb, a decidedly hip and urban city, hosts a night slalom on the
outskirts of town with a motorcade to get athletes to the hill and thousands of
fans in street shoes watching. It is an annual festival and it is always exciting.
Hit by a stretch of warm weather, the hill was in good (but not perfect)
condition and the first run saw what might have been expected: Reinfried
Herbst, the winner of the two previous slaloms, held a big lead. Two Italians,
Guiliano Razzoli and Manfred Moelgg, were second and third.
But Herbst had raced first in the opening heat, and the hill had not held
up as well as some would have liked. In the second run, skiing last, and with
Razzoli and Moelgg having put down strong runs, Herbst got a bit anxious,
