ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
OFTERSCHWANG
V for Viktoria
GERMAN VIKTORIA REBENSBURG
DOUBLES DOWN ON GIANT SLALOM WINS
AT HOME IN OFTERSCHWANG TO RETAKE
THE DISCIPLINE LEAD BY ERIC WILLIAMS
Overcoming several mistakes in her second run allowed Viktoria Rebensburg to stifle Lindsey Vonn’s chance at a second career GS win.
Viktoria Rebensburg came home to Ofter-
schwang, Germany, in the Bavarian Mountains to
a warm welcome — literally. Temperatures hit the
high 50s every day during the sunny, three-day
tech series from March 2 to 4. A crew of 450 course
workers spread tons of salt on the course, pulling
off six competitive runs in the face of tough, slushy
conditions.
Rebensburg, the reigning Olympic GS champion
and World Cup titleholder, pulled into town having
relinquished her lead in the GS ranking to France’s
Tessa Worley, who stood 20 points ahead after tak-
ing back-to-back wins in the last two GS races in
Kranjska Gora and Soldeu. Rebensburg had raced
in Ofterschwang twice before but never finished
higher than sixth.
The first GS race, which replaced a contest can-
celed by snowfall at Courchevel in December and
was again postponed by wind in Soldeu in January,
was finally held in T-shirt weather as racers, coach-
es and fans enjoyed the rare opportunity to catch
some rays during the World Cup tour.
The home girl caught a break in the first run when
Worley slipped to seventh place as Rebensburg took
a 0.11-second advantage into the second run. She
gave up only a few hundredths of a second to win
by 0.06 seconds and reclaim the lead in the overall
GS standings with a 44-point advantage while Slo-
venian Tina Maze, a six-time second-place finisher
this season, took runner-up placing yet again.
“The crowd was really cool,” said Rebensburg, who
collected her fifth career win and first in her native
Germany. “I didn’t really have such a good feeling in
the second run because it was pretty tough. I’m so,
so happy. It’s a wonderful day.”
Riding high from the previous day’s win, Rebens-
burg took Saturday’s first run by 0.85 seconds.
Standing sixth after the first run, Lindsey Vonn
