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Jan Hudec slapped
some fives after
scoring a podium
finish.
the Crans Montana races all went to veteran skiers.
The most veteran of them all, Didier Cuche, bid fare-
well to his legions of Swiss fans by capturing the first
SG on Friday. The oldest man on the Austrian squad,
Benni Raich, won the second SG, his first career-speed
event victory. Italian GS winner Massimiliano Blardone
(at 32) is no spring chicken, either.
Conventional wisdom didn’t seem to fit at Crans Mon-
tana. Early skiers were supposed to have a huge ad-
vantage in the super G events, but that’s where the
vision, understanding and execution came into play. In
the first race, Cuche wore bib 20 and Raich, in third,
wore bib 21. The second SG was more of the same:
Raich wore 16 to the top step of the podium, Adrien
Theaux wore 20 to rung two and Cuche wore 19 to the
lower step.
Benjamin Raich is
back in winning
form.
Massimiliano Blardone
climbed the fence
to celebrate a hard-
fought GS win.
Super G 1
On Day One, Canadian Jan Hudec had established
the early lead as the sixth starter. He said even at
that point the course was falling apart. “It was bumpy
when I went down,” he said, “but it really deteriorated
for the other guys.”
Right out of the start gate Hudec was screaming fast,
picking up three-tenths on the field in the first 40 sec-
onds. He said he got “a little conservative at the bot-
tom,” and felt he had left a window of opportunity for
others to catch him. But it was not a situation in which
to take too much risk. Just outside “the line” were those
mashed potatoes the coaches were talking about. So
much as touch them, and the anchor line draws tight.
It was more than conceivable Hudec’s time would hold
up.
Klaus Kroell came closest to Hudec through the first
two-thirds of the course but an error, a detour off line,
dragged his anchor and he faded to tenth.
“No one was really close to me at the top,” said Hudec,
“but if anyone can sneak in there, it would be Cuche.”
And it was. Just ninth at the first interval, Cuche said
he knew his skis were “rockets,” but the run just wasn’t
going well. It felt awkward somehow, as a bumpy, soft
course can. And then, “somehow it just started feeling
right,” Cuche said. To the final interval timer he was no
better than third, but the bottom section, where Hudec
said he had left a window of opportunity, Cuche seized
the day. “I think I was able to find the fastest and clean-
est line in the lower section,” he said in classic under-
statement.
The result was his fourth win of his farewell season
and, importantly, his first win in his native Switzerland
since 2002.
It was not a day to come from the back of the pack.
Of the 25 starters between 45 and 70, 11 failed to fin-
ish. The scariest of the crashes was a helmet-popping
wreck from Silvano Viletta and he escaped relatively
unscathed — a mild concussion and a sore wrist —
but there were no bibs above 30 earning double-digit
points.
The Canadians — “believing in what they are doing
and believing in themselves,” as coach Johno McBride
put it — had Hudec notch the team’s fifth straight race
with a podium. Erik Guay was 13th and Jeffrey Frisch
earned his first points since 2009.
The U.S. had an amazing nine starters — and that’s
without Bode Miller, who, at that point, was still hopeful
of being able to continue his 15th season. U.S. coach
Sasha Rearick said his skiers either went “too round or
too straight,” leaving the top U.S. placing a 24th from
Andrew Weibrecht. Ted Ligety got 28th and Thomas
Biesemeyer collected his first World Cup points in
30th.
The race also was the premier speed race appear-
ance for World Cup overall standings leader Marcel
Hirscher. With a tight, three-way race for the most
