Jean Baptiste Grange close to first World Cup podium

Manuèle Lang 06.03.2007 08:24 Uhr

Two weeks after clinching slalom bronze at Are, France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange came very close to his first podium in a World Cup slalom. He finished 4th in Kranjska Gora, only a few tenths of a second away from it!

The skier from Valloire, clearly the fastest man on the challenging Podkoren slope in the afternoon, lost precious time earlier in the morning. He only clocked the 16th best time in the first leg – far behind the favourites. Fortunately, he managed to find a better rhythm in the second run and show once more his potential.

This promising performance allows his to move up in 10th place in the slalom start-list, not far at all from other racers as injured Felix Neureuther or Switzerland’s Marc Berthod. Another top-performance in two weeks during the Finals at Lenzerheide could help him to improve his position and get closer to the world leaders.

“After all, I can only be pleased with this 4th place. I didn’t choose the right pace this morning in the first run. I tried to ski too clean instead of attacking hard. Apparently I forgot at the start that you have to charge if you aim to win! You have to be a warrior. I think I did it perfectly during my second leg.”

“You need to achieve two great consecutive runs to reach the podium nowadays. I know what I have to do in two weeks at the Finals at Lenzerheide to ski among the best-3, which is to fight in both legs as hard has here and last week in Germany in the second run. Today I gave what I had in me this afternoon.”

“I didn’t like too much the snow conditions in the upper part of the course but it was often the case this season so I guess it was just a matter to be used to it. I’m happy to have kept a aggressive pace during the entire last steep part so I moved up in the standings. Yet it was clearly not enough to deserve a spot on the podium today – I just didn’t put together a good first run, in fact it was rather mediocre.”

“It’s my best World Cup performance so far – I was twice 8th recently so I’m happy to have passed that limit. It’s a nice door which has been opened now for the last slalom at Lenzerheide. At the end of the day, I had a positive season. I guess my bronze medal reinforced my confidence and help me to liberate a lot of momentum. I definitely felt moving up and improving, I knew I had the skiing for strong results but now I have to focus on achieving two good runs.”

The next men’s slalom is scheduled in two weeks at Lenzerheide where the 2005 Finals already took place. It will also be decisive for the issue of the slalom standings!