U.S. ski medal hopes fade as 'Royal Flush' slalom course looms
Nathaniel Vinton/New York Daily NewsThe Alpine ski course at the Sochi Olympics features a rare 'Royal Flush' - four gates set straight down the slope so racers build speed before coming over a piece of terrain into a sharp turn to their left.
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia - Prospects for another Alpine skiing medal Friday for the U.S. Ski Team grew dim (but didn't flicker out) when Bode Miller and Ted Ligety struggled in the first half of the men's super combined race.
'I think Americans had tough start positions,' said Miller, describing the way warm sunshine softened the icy downhill track at Rosa Khutor. 'The mistakes I made, there's no excuse for those. I know this course.'
Ligety and Miller, training partners who won the last two Olympic combined events in 2006 and 2010, could still ski onto the podium in the afternoon's slalom run, but doing so would require surviving a tricky course that is sure to deteriorate as soon as racers start skiing on it.
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Fans will get to witness quite a spectacle as the slalom course features a rare 'Royal Flush' - four gates set straight down the slope so that racers build speed before coming over a piece of terrain into a sharp turn to their left. The sudden pressure each racer will have to apply to the soft snow with his right ski there will likely make a deep divot that organizers will have trouble repairing.
That turn, only a few hundred feet from the finish line, could prove to be a decisive factor in how the top contenders finish (or fail to) when the race resumes at 3:30 local time (6:30 AM in New York).
Ivica Kostelic of Croatia is perhaps the gold-medal favorite after finishing 0.93 seconds off the best performance of the morning's downhill run, Norwegian Kjetil Jansrud's time of 1 minute, 53.24 seconds. Kostelic is an excellent slalom skier whose father set the afternoon's eccentric slalom course.
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Other top contenders include Alexis Pinturault of France, Peter Fill of Italy and Thomas Mermillod Blondin of France, though the super combined is always an unpredictable affair.
Four Americans are on the start list for the slalom: Andrew Weibrecht (11th), Ligety (13th), Jared Goldberg (16th) and Miller (19th). The start order was determined by their performance in the downhill, with the top 30 finishers in that portion of the race running in reverse order.
Miller was 1.43 seconds off Jansrud's time, and Ligety was 1.93 seconds out. Goldberg, their 25-year-old teammate who grew up racing at the Snowbird ski resort in Utah, was 1.66 seconds off Jansrud's time in his Olympic debut.
The fourth American starter, Andrew Weibrecht of Lake Placid, New York, was 2.09 seconds from the leader. He was a bronze medalist in the super G at the Vancouver Games four years ago.
Ivica Kostelic is a skilled slalom skier who has undergone a dozen knee surgeries in a career going back to 1998. He has three Olympic medals, including two silvers from the Vancouver Games - in slalom as well as the super combined that Miller won.
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