Career-Best Super-G Result for Merryweather at Rosa Khutor
After a frustrating week full of cancellations, the Rosa Khutor organizing committee was able to run a successful super-G on Sunday—the first World Cup alpine race at the venue since the 2014 Olympics. Alice Merryweather led the way for the Land Rover U.S. Alpine Ski Team, snagging a career-best super-G result, in 17th.
The Italians continued their hot streak of fast skiing on Sunday, with Federica Brignone leading the way and countrywoman Sofia Goggia trailing by just .20 seconds. Joana Haehlen skied her way on to the podium for the second-straight weekend, landing in third—her first-ever super-G podium result. This is the fourth 1-2 finish for the Italian women's team this season.
For the second year in a row, Mother Nature was unkind to Rosa Khutor, dumping snow and pouring rain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday—cancelling all three downhill training runs. An alternate plan was put into place for Saturday, to run a training run in the morning followed by the race, but the surface was not safe for a race. Temperatures were warm and the surface did not freeze overnight, so the course crew watered and salted the bottom of the track, and—for the most part—the track set up for a safe super-G race on Sunday morning.
The "hurry up and wait" game proved to take its toll on athletes throughout the week. "It was definitely challenging to sit around for most of this week," reflected Alice Merryweather. "There isn't that much to do around here, so we've been playing spikeball and doing workouts to kill time, and I was feeling pretty antsy and mentally drained by today. Still, everyone was pumped up to actually race, and I just channeled all the pent-up energy into my run today. My skiing was far from perfect, but it's still a step in the right direction and I'm happy with the progress I've been making in super-G this season!"
With Sunday's victory, Federica took the lead in the super-G standings, with 216 points. Corinne Suter of Switzerland has 200 points, while Mikaela Shiffrin—who opted to sit the Sochi speed series out—sits in third with 186 points. Mikaela maintains her lead in the overall, but Federica closed the gap to 270 points and sits in second with 955 points ahead of Slovakia's Petra Vlhova, with 830.
Alice McKennis also scored points, landing in 27th. Breezy Johnson and Jackie Wiles also started on Sunday, but did not finish. Both are OK. Many of the women struggled on the watered, bumpy bottom pitch, with 12 athletes DNFing.
Up next for the women is a speed series in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
RESULTS
Women’s Super-G
HOW TO WATCH
All times EST
Saturday, Feb. 2
6:30 a.m. - Women’s super-G, Rosa Khutor, RUS - Olympic Channel*
7:30 a.m. - Men’s giant slalom run 2, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, GER - Olympic Channel.com, NBC Sports Gold
4:00 p.m. - Men’s giant slalom, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, GER - NBCSN*
*Same-day broadcast
Note: All televised events to stream across NBCSports.com, NBC Sports app, OlympicChannel.com, and Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA app.
Exclusive commercial-free coverage will be available for subscribers of the NBC Sports Gold Pass, available here: https://www.nbcsports.com/gold/snow.
