Nyman Leads Americans on Hahnenkamm

KITZBUEHEL, Austria (Jan. 24, 2014)—After two hours of weather delays, the famed Hahnenkamm was shortened—with the fastest times coming in at under a minute. Steven Nyman (Sundance, UT) was the top American downhiller on Saturday, taking fifth place—his best ever result in Kitzbuehel.

After winning both training runs, Kjetil Jansrud of Norway stepped on top of the podium again. Paris Dominik of Italy was second, just missing first place by .02 seconds, and Guillermo Fayed of France took third.

"This is a good step forward and confidence builder going into Beaver Creek," Nyman said after his downhill run. "I want to give it everything and see what I got. Hopefully I can win or get a medal. I’m stoked."

The racers could hear the 60-70,000-person crowd in the start gate and even with massive delays and falling snow, the audience was electric. The spectators lined the finish of ski racing’s Super Bowl—a right-of-passage race for so many skiers. As Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) said after the super G, “Every ski racer has two goals: an Olympic medal and a podium or a win in Kitzbuehel.”

The racers still got up to almost 80 mph, but on such a short track, there was very little room for error. Both Marco Sullivan (Squaw Valley, CA) and Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, CA) noted that, making a couple quick mistakes, which put them down in 41st and 44th, respectively.

Only his second time on the Hahnenkamm, Jared Goldberg (Holladay, UT) had a solid run, taking 25th. Wiley Maple (Aspen, CO) just skied out of the points, into 31st place, while Weibrecht opted to rest and did not start.

The Kitzbuehel weekend is not over yet. The tech men are ready to tackle the hill for the slalom, with the start just below where the shortened downhill began. Be sure to stream the race live on Universal Sports at 4:15 a.m. (first run) and 7:00 a.m. (second run) EST on Sunday. It will also air on NBCSN at 10:30 a.m. EST.

HIGHLIGHTS

• This was the shortest Hahnenkamm downhill in history.
• Bode Miller (Franconia, NH) did not race the downhill, and is hoping to qualify for World Championships in Vail/Beaver Creek, Colorado.
• Kjetil Jansrud of Norway won both downhill training runs and the shortened downhill at Kitzbuehel this year.
• Prior to this race, Nyman had only one top-20 result on the Hahnenkamm—19th in 2008.
• Catch Universal Sports’ re-air of the downhill at 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. EST on Saturday, and 1:00 a.m. EST on Sunday.

QUOTES
Steven Nyman
Kitzbuehel is cool. Everybody loves it. Everybody is calling your name out. You’re walking down the street and you hear “Nyman! Nyman! Nyman!” That’s cool. I wish we could have put on the big show, but that’s the way it is sometimes.

This is great. This is a good step forward and confidence builder going into Beaver Creek. I love that hill. I want to give it everything and see what I got. Hopefully I can win or get a medal. I’m stoked. I had a great super G run yesterday and qualified for the super G, so I’ll run that. I might even get into combi, so we’ll see. I’m super excited to get there and see what I can pull off. It’s Worlds, so you gotta risk everything. It’s about the medal.

You come to Kitz and you know they’re going to run the race. You got to just keep your mind in it. They just kept delaying, delaying. They’ll adapt it however they can. They’ve done two-run downhills, they’ve run around the bend, they’ve done all kinds of stuff, but they always make the race happen. You can see that there’s 60 or 70,000 people out here right now, so you have to keep your head in the game and adjust according to wherever they start. 

I’m headed home tomorrow and will take a couple days off, then we’ll train in Park City for a couple days. Then it’s off to Colorado.

RESULTS
Official results