First World Cup win for Sarah Schleper

Parpan/Lenzerheide, Switzerland, March 12th - 2005. USA's Sarah Schleper celebrated her first World Cup victory in today's dramatic slalom dominated by the tough fight for the Overall title opposing Anja Paerson to Janica Kostelic. Clocking best times in both runs, the 26-year-old skier from Vail beat by 34/100 of a second Croatia's Janica Kostelic while Austria's Nicole Hosp achieved her best slalom performance this winter in finishing 3rd, 90/100 behind the winner.

Finland's Tanja Poutiainen finished her outstanding season with a strong 4th before collecting her first ever slalom Crystal globe on the winners' podium. She tied with Germany's Hilde Gerg.

Anja Paerson was only 10th behind less established slalom specialists as Croatia's Nika Fleiss (6th ) USA's Lindsey Kildow (7th ) and Julia Mancuso (8) while Kathrin Zettel, the junior World Champion, confirmed her potential with her 9th place.

The fight goes on!

Anja Paerson, who leads now the Overall by 35 points, will have to fight until the last gate of Sunday's giant slalom to successfully defend her title in front of Kostelic, who hasn't achieved any impressive performance in giant slalom since her spectacular crash from St Moritz.

The triple Olympic and five-time World Champion was happy to reach once again the podium in slalom this season despite the tough course conditions. She made several mistakes during her two runs and almost lost twice her balance in the second leg. “It was a tough course and I'm happy I made it through,” she said. “It's fun that the competition remains interesting until the end but I don't seriously believe I have a chance to beat Anja because I've been so bad in giant slalom this season,” she added.
“I haven't been on the podium in giant slalom since Aspen in November. Of course I'll fight but I don't really have big expectations.”

Her Swedish rival, who tops the giant slalom standings with four podiums in the discipline, only needs to finish ahead of Janica to wrap-up her second Overall title. Janica on her side needs at least to be 7th to score more than 35 points. In case the skier from Zagreb wins her very first World Cup giant slalom, Anja has to be at least 2nd to stay ahead of her. Yet the skier from Taernaby needs to find back her usual rhythm and her momentum to achieve her potential. She obviously had a hard time to move at her best level in the second run after posting the third fastest time in the race's first run.

“Everyone has been going on about the Overall World Cup and the situation with the points,” Anja Paerson explained afterwards. “It makes it hard to enjoy the fight for the individual races. I was not more nervous than usual and I was really trying to win today but I just made mistakes because the course was so tough.”

Anja has been particularly consistent in giant slalom in the past two years, finishing among the top-6 in all the 25 races she ended and winning 9 of them! She should be able to continue on that pace on Sunday!

First Cup for Tanja

Tanja Poutiainen, who had already secured the women's slalom title in Maribor with six podium places from the first seven races, narrowly missed out on another podium spot after improving from seventh to fourth place during her second run. As many other favourites, The Finn struggled in the last icy turns of the first run where she almost skied out.

“It's been an amazing season for me,” the 24-year-old Scandinavian said. “I was looking at Sarah celebrating her first win today and thinking how I was in that position just one year ago. I never thought I could achieve such a great season this winter. I guess that the huge confidence I gained last year in winning in Levi that I suddenly felt able to do much better. To have done so well in the technical disciplines is really making me think about training seriously to also compete in the Super-G,” Tanja added. “But I don't think that will be until after the Turin Olympics.”

In Sunday's last women's race, Tanja Poutiainen and Slovenia's Tina Maze will try to beat Anja Paerson in the GS standings - while Spain's Maria Jose Rienda Contreras will aim for another win as well as Nicole Hosp or Marlies Schild, who skied out today at the top of the first run.

Patrick Lang