This is one of the absolute classics on the WC tour. The hill is just brutal and unrelenting. Terrain, rollovers, blind turns. It has it all. Today, as always the winner expressed that winning felt great, but skiing it felt horrible. Alexis Pinturault won. Awesome for him, in his home country. Stefan Luitz of Germany continues to ski really well, and was second. Hirscher, first after the first run has a big bobble in the second run, and being Hirscher, was able to round out the podium and stay in the GS lead. He put his hand right through the inside of a gate early on, had a panel on his arm for a bit, them he simply charged, hammer down like....Hirscher. Wow,
This GS mens field is very skilled, and very deep. We're going to see great skiing this season, IMO a combination of the group, the new 30M skis, and what we'll see for course sets as everybody gets dialed in. Today they had to deal with high wind, lowered the start, but they pulled it off.
So, about the Americans. We had three in the top 30. They have had worse days, but.....Tommy Ford was sitting in 10th after run one, and unfortunately dropped to 22nd after the second. He has real speed, and is great to watch. He needs to put two runs together , and he'd be top 10. That's his next step.
Jitloff finished 20th. Remember he was cut by the USST, and is racing independently. This is about where Jit, when healthy should be {if nor faster}. Pretty good result.
Ligety had a lousy first run. He admitted it, going from nice perfect CO, and buffed Beaver Creek, to the Face de Bellevarde. He was the last guy to get a second run, finishing 30th in the first. Running first in the second run, he was top five. Pintu and Luitz beat him, and Hirscher clearly would have without the panel. Ted finished 15th. So......lousy first run. We're not seeing Mr. GS...yet. He's a top five guy, and a podium threat and perhaps we'll see him get a bit faster. Let's hope that his back holds up.
Two of the younger guys, Ryan Cochran Siegle and Hig Roberts were real close to a second run. 33rd and 35th. Just .3 out. On a hill like this, that's pretty solid. However for a dose of reality, there were over ten guys their age or younger who did make a second run. Daver Choudunsky DNF'd.
Still perplexes the outside world that guys like Jit and Hig are not "good enough" to be on the team. Jit is older, a year younger than Ligety, 32. Hig is just 26, but didn't make criteria and was dropped.
Canadians had a tough day. Erik Read was 34th first run. Phil Brown was 42nd. Trevor Philp DNF'd.
We're going to have to look for the bright spots, and hope that Ted stays healthy.
