Kira Weidle was stunned. “There is no such thing,” said the World Cup runner-up, referring to less 39th place and her huge deficit on serial winner Sofia Goggia in the World Cup descent from Val d’Isere. What made Weidle angry: That the same mistake had happened to her again in that darn right turn. Weidle prevented a bad fall with difficulty and sent a wild scream into the high Savoy Alps. Even during her messed up ride, she angrily hit the slope with her ski pole, at the finish she drummed her fists on her helmet.
No wonder: Even during training, she was supported in the same place and had slightly injured her thumb. And: In the previous year, too, she deviated from the traditional “OK” slope in both training sessions, and back then, too, her thumb hurt. Was the cold to blame? “It was more of a tactical problem,” Weidle reported with a cough in the ARD, “I wasn’t quite self-confident about the outside ski, I couldn’t quite manage the direction and I flew very far into this hole again.” So she was able to control the body tension “Don’t quite hold it, that happens”.
Weidle were 4.32 seconds apart from Olympic champion Goggia (Italy), who won her seventh consecutive downhill run. Only the Americans Tricia Mangan and Greta Small (Australia) were slower. Despite having a cold, she felt “ready” – but “maybe only with 95 percent of her strength”. That wasn’t enough. In the Super-G on Sunday, said the 25-year-old, “not much to be expected, but I’ll do my best”.
Nobody succeeds as well as Goggia. The top favorite for Olympic downhill gold in Beijing also prevailed in the third race of the season ahead of the American Breezy Johnson (+0.27). Third was Mirjam Puchner (Austria / + 0.91).
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