09 February 2003

The FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2003 St. Moritz-Pontresina, Engadine for two weeks from 1st to 16th February.

Event outline | Maier | Austian Womens Gold | Eberharter | Combined | Downhill | Chemmy | Kostelic

Walchhofer wins St Moritz Mens Downhill
Michael Walchhofer won a thrilling race that saw pre race favourite, Stephan Eberharter, finish fifth and Hermann Maier eighth. For a while it looked as if Swiss star, Bruno Kernen would become the first two time world champion (having won in 1997) but with so many top stars starting outside the top thirty, he had to wait longer to be sure. Walchhofer started 31 and with Norwegian Aamodt chasing his 12th world championship medal, Kernen was up against it. Walchhofer destroyed Swiss hopes and Kernen's time by over a second. Then Aamodt took half a second out of the Swiss stars time to push him down to third. Aamodt joked afterwards he had been heading down the Gold Course before switching onto the silver course as the reason why he came second!

As so often has happened this season, Finlay Mickel was stopped on his way down the course. In Val d'Isere this has allowed him to go to better things as it blew away the nerves. Last Thursday in the Combined downhill Mickel was stopped on a fantastic run, yesterday just 15 seconds into the course Mickel saw the flags again! Had the original start times been kept to, Mickel would still have been in the start when German Max Rauffer crashed. Just four runners before, the start interval had been reduced down to one minute fifteen seconds.

For Mickel the helicopter ride back up upset his rhythm and preparation and he had to run second last, before South African Alex Heath. "I am so over these flags," reflected a dejected Mickel in the finish. The last seven weeks have been tough but the Scot can look forward to some rest and then the Europa Cup Finals and the British championships in Tignes in March.

[Source: Neil McQuoid ]

Mail this page to a friend
What do you think? Tell us in the Chat Room