Sarah Schleper on a cloud

Parpan/Lenzerheide, March 12th - 2005. It took a long time to Sarah Schleper to win her first World Cup race - today, the skier from Vail finally achieved her dream in Lenzerheide's slalom raced on the lower part of the icy “Silvano Berltrametti” course.

“I'm walking through the sky right now, my minds are upside down, I don't know what to think, it's amazing,” she said after the race. “Sometimes, I seriously doubted that I will happen one day, yet I kept on working really hard and it paid off today. It was the first time I was leading a slalom, but then I went into my second run without thinking about nothing else but the finish line. I didn't care about anything else and it worked today. I had two really good runs, as Janica told me, there were quite perfect.”

“I've always wanted to win a World Cup and now I'm a winner. It's probably one of the coolest feelings I've ever had,” she also said. “Between runs, I just tried to stay cool. I didn't want to stress. Janica said to me before the run, at the start, - Is this your first time leading after the first run? Your first time in the hot seat? - I don't know if she was trying to psyche me. I had so many butterflies in my stomach.”

“But it was a good course for me, a tight second run, and good snow...and everything worked out. The injected snow was similar to when I was 2nd in the first run at Zagreb, Croatia, last January and a year ago at Sestriere when I was 2nd at the 2004 World Cup Finals.”

“It's a short, pretty easy hill for slalom, but they injected the snow with water to make it icy and hard, and so it's usually rough, not perfectly smooth, and that's been good for me. I don't know what but the little roughness helps me.”

A new Rossignol ski.

“Rossignol's also got me a new ski that's a lot more stable and the coaches have worked with me on picking up a better line, and I recently trained with Kalle Palander, and all of it's come together.”

“ I also feel better since I started seeing a very good sports medicine specialist in Germany, Dr. Muller, he has done miracle on my back, I can move much better, I'm so thankful, I had hard time with my back but know I can move better. I know I can ski better and it will an advantage for me for tomorrow's giant slalom. It's all those things put together which let me win today.”

“Somewhere, I did believe the victory will come a day and now it became true, it's fantastic but I still can't believe it! You know, be a world cup winner means a lot for me, it's a big deal to be the best in the world for one day, I couldn't ask anything better.”

“It's great to prepare my next season, before the Olympics, but I don't want to think about that today, I have to enjoy my victory. I'm very proud to be part from the US ski team which has done so well this winter. I enjoyed being warmly welcomed by the other girls at the finish line. We are very close with my team mates, we enjoy each others good performances, I know I can be proud and I'm really, really, really happy to be in this team.”

“I'm dedicating this victory to creation and universal God, but I'm firstly very proud of myself, so I'll dedicate to me!”

Patrick Lang