Ganong Battles Bug to Finish 9th in Saalbach
SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (Feb. 22, 2015)—In a turny, technical super G set by American coach Forest Carey that did not excuse any mistakes, the Austrian Matthias Mayer once again emerged victorious. That makes for two gold medals in two days for the Austrian who figured out this challenging track full of blind gates, fallaways and big jumps on an aggressive, bumpy surface. Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, CA) was the top American finisher, toughing out a ninth place finish after falling ill and missing the downhill.
France’s Adrien Theaux, who launched off the final jump with flair into a spread eagle in Friday’s downhill training run, finished second and Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud in third.
While many racers battled visibility, with thick fog in the middle of the course, Ganong had a different battle to fight. A gnarly stomach bug kept him in bed all day Saturday, forcing him to miss the downhill on the challenging Schneekristall-Zwolfer track. Ganong, who hasn’t been able to break into the top 20 this season in super G, battled the sickness to score his best result of the season—ninth place. With the exception of hitting a hole at the bottom of the course at a right foot double with a tricky fallaway that gave many competitors problems, Ganong maintained a good pace throughout his run.
“I really was not expecting anything,” Ganong said. “Yesterday I was really sick—like the most sick I’ve felt in my life. I was throwing up and I spent the whole day in bed sleeping. I had to skip the downhill race. So this morning I didn’t even spin on the bike or do any warm-up or anything. I just showed up and skied and I had no plan, really, I just went gate to gate. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s better for me, mentally, for super G.”
This is a brand-new track for these guys, and with no training run and so much terrain, there is a lot to learn. What’s more, athletes fought damp mist and thickening fog. Visibility worsened at the mid-section of course where the bumps and ruts were also at their worst. When Canada’s Manuel Osborne-Paradis skied out in that section of the course, he exclaimed, “Can’t see two gates!”
It was a deep American field, eight skiers competed in today’s super G. Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) finished 19th, Jared Goldberg (Holladay, UT) 30th, Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) 35th, Wiley Maple (Aspen, CO) 38th, and Tim Jitloff (Reno, NV) 42nd. Steven Nyman (Sundance, UT) and Marco Sullivan (Squaw Valley, CA) DNFed.
Watch the Saalbach super G on Universal Sports Network, re-airing at 11:00 a.m., 3:30 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. EST.
HIGHLIGHTS
- This was Matthias Mayer's second win in two days of the 2014/2015 season, and third World Cup win of his career. Mayer is now a threat for both the super G and downhill World Cup titles.
- With his third place finish, Kjetil Jansrud salvaged an important 60 points, and will keep the red bib in super G. Jansrud opened up his advantage to 73 points over Italy’s Dominik Paris and is 116 points behind Marcel Hirscher in the chase for overall title with eight races left to go.
- Travis Ganong’s previous best super G result this season was a 21st in Lake Louise.
- Austrian tech powerhouse Marcel Hirscher showed that he can ski more than just GS and slalom, finishing 17th and grabbing critical World Cup points that’ll keep Kjetil Jansrud at bay in the overall World Cup standings.
- The men will now travel to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany for a downhill and GS pairing of races, while the women’s speed team heads to Bankso, Bulgaria for a pair of super G races and their first alpine combined of the regular World Cup season.
QUOTES
Travis Ganong
I really was not expecting anything. Yesterday I was really sick—like the most sick I’ve felt in my life. I was throwing up and I spent the whole day in bed sleeping. I had to skip the downhill race. So this morning I didn’t even spin on the bike or do any warm-up or anything. I just showed up and skied and I had no plan, really, I just went gate to gate. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s better for me, mentally, for super G. I’m really happy that I was able to ski today and be competitive. I didn’t feel like I pushed that hard, just because my energy level is a little low. But the skiing was solid, and it was a tough hill—so if you had a good solid run from top to bottom, you could be in it still.
It’s a real super G hill. It’s a cool super G hill—lots of big terrain, lots of rollers. It’s a real-deal hill. It was really fun.
Jared Goldberg
Today I skied pretty well, but was kind of battling a shoulder injury from my crash and a shin-bang too. I was trying to push it as hard as I could, but before my run I could barely even lift my arm. I used adrenaline and was able to ski pretty well most of the run and just got low on some of the gates with sharp holes.
It’s very important [to get back out there after a crash], that why I wanted to get out and just do it. Even if it hurt, it wasn’t going to make it any worse, so I just figured I would push through the pain and I’m glad I did. And I was skiing well.
RESULTS
Official results
