Top-10 Super G for Weibrecht at Birds of Prey
The top was really good. It was solid skiing. By the GS start, I got a little squashed in there and had a mistake. I knew I was losing a little time, so I pushed it a bit harder. I had a couple little ragged mistakes down bottom, and then out of the Abyss there’s a tough switch. It comes at you really quick; you gotta be in the right place. You gotta commit before you ski the gate. It’s a really, really tough couple of gates. Obviously I lost some time there, but that’s the way it goes.
In general, you needed a lot of direction at the blind parts of the course. Guys were going too straight and missing gates. The report I sent up was that you gotta get on that top of that knoll at the Abyss and already be making that switch, already be diving in the course. It’s a tough thing to do, but you have to trust it.
It’s a rough-and-tumble fight type of super G. Every time in the start, you ask: Is this going to work? Am I going to pull it off? You gotta go. You gotta get it. It’s a tough one.
The downhill [on Friday] was huge for me. I was really excited to be in the points yesterday. I looked it up yesterday: It’s been 1,777 days since I scored a downhill point. It was nice to get that monkey off my back and I’ll continue building through the season.
Ted Ligety
It’s great to be here racing. I skied like a wuss for sure. There’s a lot of time to be had and this is a hill that you need to match your intensity to your skiing and go really hard. If you’re a good technical skier, you can make up the time on the top pitch. I lost a ton of time in a place where I should have been up there with the fastest guys. That’s pretty disappointing.
That course set was really fast. That hill is really daunting looking at of the start gate, for sure. But when you have my skillset in turning, there’s no excuse for losing time to downhill skiers on that pitch. That’s why I was pretty disappointed; I definitely felt like I skied way to conservatively up there. It was fast and in your face, but it would have been so easy to be way, way faster there. I knew that it was attackable, but I guess I didn’t figure how attackable it was.
Being 11th place and four tenths of the podium is not horrible, but it’s definitely not what I expect out of super G on this hill.
Sasha Rearick, Men’s Head Coach
Today was an unbelievable learning day. This hill has always been challenging. We have a new outlook on what we have to work on. We didn’t put the hammer down as a group on the top. There’s a lot we can all learn from and progress, so that when we come to the next World Cup we can be better, but especially for when we come back here for the World Championships for super G.
Weibrecht skied great—aggressive skiing coming out of the Abyss where a lot of guys made a mistake. He made a great turn and was just too far off the time and carried a bunch more distance than Hannes Reichelt who executed superb skiing,
I’m super stoked on Tommy Biesemeyer who had his first time back in the points for the first time since his injury. It only took him three races and it was a good effort. He’s been nervous and tense, and today he skied more relaxed. It was a big, positive step.
Tim Jitloff had his first super G points in his career. It was nice to see. He skied the top more aggressively. Ted [Ligety] skied similar to how he did in the downhill. We just have to keep his skis in the fall line a little bit more. I look forward to watching Ted ski with more aggression [in the GS] tomorrow.
