Killington ready to host World Cup once again

Even during a typical World Cup season, American skiers don’t get a chance to enjoy the comforts of home for very long. Add in a pandemic that forced FIS, skiing’s governing body, to cancel the North American leg last season and remain in Europe for the entire winter then it’s easy to understand why the women are excited to be racing this weekend in Killington, Vt., in the HomeLight Killington Cup.

“I’m so happy and excited to be back on home soil in the U.S.,” said Paula Moltzan, a Minnesota native who lives in Charlemont during the offseason. “I’m pretty familiar with Vermont/Killington area. It’s really nice to have friends and family in the crowd when you come across the finish line, you know you can make them proud when you’re skiing down. It’s a pretty special feeling after not being on home soil for so long.”

Her best Killington finish was 17th in the 2018 slalom. She jumped 11 places from her first run by having the fourth-fastest second run.

This weekend’s events are the technical disciplines with the giant slalom scheduled for Saturday and slalom on Sunday. Both races will consist of a combined time from two runs with only the top 30 from the first run qualifying for the second run and racking up World Cup points.

Sunday will be the highlight of the weekend as Mikaela Shiffrin, the face of American skiing, attempts to remain unbeaten in Killington slaloms. She has won the event all four times since the Beast of the East made its World Cup debut in 2017. A victory would also give her 46 World Cup slalom victories, tying her with Ingemar Stenmark for the most wins in one discipline. The Swedish great won 46 giant slaloms during his career from 1974-89.

Each time Shiffrin led after the opening run resulting in her being the last skier down in the second run.

“Nobody leaves and everybody has to stay because the question is, ‘Can she pull it off?’ and basically she has ended the event by coming through the finish line in first and taking the win. People are going crazy,” Killington president and general manager Mike Solimano told the Herald. “It’s hard because now we just expect her to win. It’s a lot of pressure.”

Solimano said about 9,000 people are expected each day, about half of what the capacity was in 2019 as the resort will try to spread people out with consideration still being given for COVID-19.

Shiffrin, who has been battling a back injury, finished second to Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova in both slaloms last weekend in Levi, Finland. They are tied for the overall lead with 250 points in the early portion of the season that stretches from late October to late March. Vlhova has finished second in the slalom each of the past three times at Killington.

The owner of three overall World Cup titles, eight World Cup discipline titles (6 slalom, 1 giant slalom, 1 super-G) and two Olympic gold medals (2014 slalom, 2018 giant slalom), Shiffrin attended high school at Vermont’s Burke Mountain Academy, which has been the starting point for a number of American racers.

Joining Shiffrin will be Moltzan, AJ Hurt, Nina O’Brien and Keely Cashman. Zoe Zimmerman, 19, of Guilford, N.H., and Allie Resnick will each be making their World Cup debuts.

Moltzan, who was 24th on Sunday and 23rd in last month’s season-opening giant slalom in Soelden, Austria, has one year left as a pre-med student at the University of Vermont and spends her summers as a whitewater raft guide on the Deerfield River along with her fiancé and coach Ryan Mooney.

The 27-year-old made her World Cup debut in November 2012, but she did not crack the top 30 until January 2016, her 14th start. Moltzan returned stateside and focused on school, winning the 2017 NCAA slalom title at Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire along the way, and returned to the World Cup part-time in 2018-19 and full-time the following season.

“It reset my mentality,” she said of the break. “When I left the World Cup world, I don’t think my mindset was quite where it needed to be to be a successful ski racer. To be able to take a step back and become a student-athlete really allowed me to have a lot more perspective on life, and I think that perspective has helped me become a better athlete and a better person.”

Despite the difficulties that came with the pandemic last season, Moltzan had her best season to date, opening the season 10th in a giant slalom in Soelden, Austria. She got on the podium for the first time as the runner-up in the parallel event in Lech-Zuers, Austria, that replaced Killington’s spot on the schedule. She then had four slalom top 10s, getting as high as fifth in Are, Sweden.

Moltzan insists she isn’t focused on the upcoming Olympics, noting there is a lot of skiing to be done between now and February, and is simply trying to build off last season’s momentum and “never take any steps backwards.”

It has been a slow start to the New England ski season and Killington did not begin making snow until Oct. 18 — there are years they are already open by then — and opened to the public on Nov. 5. Solimano said snowmakers were using as many as 160 snow guns at once to turn 17 million gallons of water into the snow that covers the Superstar course. They got the “positive snow control” from Nov. 17 meaning that the race would go on.

“We pretty much pull out all the stops because it’s not really an option to not do it,” Solimano said.

Following Sunday’s slalom, the women will spend next weekend at Lake Louise in Alberta for the first speed events of the season with two downhills and a super-G before returning to Europe for the remainder of the season, except for the Olympics in Beijing.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3HZelH0