Paerson is back!

Manuèle Lang 15.12.2007 19:32 Uhr

Over a year after a last World Cup victory in the specialty, Anja Paerson celebrated her first season win today at St Moritz, capturing the spectacular downhill race there after beating by 8/100 of a second USA’s favourite Lindsey Vonn while Germany’s Maria Riesch was a strong 3rd at 33/100.

Austria’s “Speed Queen” Renate Goetschl came in 4th after reaching the podium in both previous downhills at Lake Louise and Aspen, missing another top-3 result by only 5/100.

Fraenzi Aufdenblatten was 5th and France’s Ingrid Jaquemod 6th ahead of another Swiss, Martina Schild while Canada’s Britt Janyk, the recent winner at Aspen was only 8th this time.

A long wait for Anja Paerson.
Paerson, the reigning downhill World Champion, has not won a World Cup downhill since her triumph at Are, during the 2006 World Cup Finales. It’s only her fourth win in that speciality on the World Cup tour. Interestingly enough, she had a strong chance to win that race already four years ago when she started in her very first World Cup downhill. Unfortunately for her, she missed the very last gate after clocking the fastest intermediate times.

“This is quite unbelievable, I’m so happy,” said the Swede who only finished 18th at Aspen last week. “I took much risks on my way down, I really went for it,” added the skier from Taernaby who also explained last week she had a hard time to get motivated at the season start after clinching three gold medals on home soil at Are last February. “I think I’m back now,” she also said with a grin.

Paerson, a two time Overall World Cup champion, underwent knee surgery in March 2006 and only won a single World Cup race last season, during the 2007 Finals at Lenzerheide.

Ironically, Anja Paerson has also been quite busy in St Moritz trying to put together sort of a “Racers’ Union” to defend the interest of the speed skiers following the controversial downhill at Aspen raced by very difficult course and weather conditions. Several skiers suffered tough crashes there and some good badly hurt as France Anne-Sophie Barthet who blew out her knee during her accident.

Paerson, the only racer to have clinched gold medals in all specialties at FIS World Championships, was seeking for such a great performance to find back her momentum. “It’s difficult to fully concentrate on normal races after enjoying so many exciting moments at recent medal events,” she also said. “Hopefully things will go better now,” added the Scandinavian who was foremost a slalom specialist at the start of her international career in the late 1990s. “It’s for sure easier when you compete on such a nice course and by sunshine,” she also said.

It was Anja’s 36th World Cup win which allows her to tie with Germany former star Katja Seinzinger in 4th place of the list of all-time big winners. Austrian ski legend Annemarie Moser-Proell leads it with a total of 62 wins from 1970 to 1980.

Lindsey was fast and lucky.
Vonn, the winner at Lake Louise, made a small mistake in the upper part of the course where she almost lost her balance in a wide right turn. She artistically avoided the crash yet certainly lost time with this problem. At least the skier from Park City regained the lead in the downhill standings since Canada’s Britt Janyk finished far behind the podium. The American “Red Bull” star was sorry not to have won the race after her very aggressive run down the “Corviglia” course but she also knew where she lost the race.

“I tried hard but my run was not as clean as I wanted in the middle section where I hit a small rut, yet the rest was fine,” she said afterwards. She will certainly once more move at her limits in Sunday’s Super-G, hopefully with more success than in Lake Louise where she crashed after clocking the fastest split time at the top.

Maria Riesch, already on the podium in Lake Louise and also twice here is past years, confirms her strong form in downhill so far. “It’s good for my confidence to reach another podium today after my excellent result at Lake Louise,” she said afterwards. “I was able to be more aggressive today than in training but as you can see, I was not the only one to ski faster today. It’s a nice course and I really like it here.”

Renate Goetschl, twice on the podium in North America, came very close to her third consecutive podium. “It’s a nice and fast course and I did my best but today three other skiers were just faster than me, that’s life, I have nothing to complain so far. I’m happy with my season start, I did much better than expected considering the fact that I didn’t ski so much this summer after my knee surgery.”

The Swiss skiers, who excelled in training, didn’t confirm their form on race, day. Three of them finished in the top-10 ahead of Julia Mancuso with Fraenzi Aufdenblatten in 5th place-

In Sunday’s Super-G Martina Schild will try to reach another podium after surprisingly beating all the favorites at Lake Louise. It will not be easy if the race conditions remain fair – Vonn, Riesch, Paerson, Goetschl, Mancuso and many others will also fight hard on the splendid Corviglia slope.