Winters Scores in Adleboden Slalom
Luke Winters scored his first FIS Ski World Cup points of the 2020-21 season in the Adelboden slalom, finishing in 22nd.
On another sunny day in Switzerland, the tough Chuenisbärgli hill tripped up man after man, with many athletes skiing out or hiking to finish. Marco Schwarz of Austria was the winner of the day with Linus Strasser of Germany in second. British skier Dave Ryding took his third career podium in third place.
Winters had a solid first run showing and sat in 20th going into second run. But like so many men in the race, Luke went down on his hip on the pitch. However, he stayed cool and didn’t let the mistake affect his skiing, continuing to race and make it to the finish. This was the first time Luke scored World Cup points since the Adelboden slalom last year where he finished 26th, and was his fourth career points score.
"It was a good day for me," said Winters. "I was fast here last year on the first run as well and so I knew where I needed to take the speed and where I need to be smart. I thought I executed my plan well that first run. What I’ve been focusing on in training is being athletic and loose and that’s how I skied first run."
Ryan Wilson, the men's World Cup slalom coach agreed with Luke that it was a good day and that this is a step in the right direction for the slalom team. "Big win today for U.S. slalom," said Wilson. "We have a belief that we are coming to more results that we haven’t had yet. This definitely helps."
Rounding out the Land Rover U.S. Alpine Ski Team, Jett Seymour just missed second run, finishing in 34th. Ben Ritchie also did not qualify for second run. But the guys are getting closer. "Jett and Ben have both been skiing incredibly fast in training," said Winters. "It’s just a matter of time before they do it. Looking forward to that. It happened to be me today, but it’s going to happen soon with all of us."
The results are starting to come in because of how hard this team is working—both physically and mentally. And fans should start expecting to see more second runs from this crew.
"We had an absolute reset in the approach to racing and the way that we were training coming into this from Zagreb," said Wilson. "We changed the mentality of going fast and letting your athletic ability come out. These guys are three freakshow athletes, so if they’re trying to go as fast as they can and making recoveries, that’s way better than trying to control everything that doesn’t play to their strengths."
The men’s World Cup stays in Switzerland for the classic Lauberhorn downhill on Friday and Saturday and slalom on Sunday in Wengen.
RESULTS
Men’s slalom
Sunday, Jan. 10
2:00 p.m. FIS Alpine World Cup Men's Slalom - same-day broadcast, Adelboden, SUI, Broadcast NBCSN
Tuesday, Jan. 12
12:00 p.m. FIS Alpine World Cup Women's Slalom, run 1 - LIVE, Flachau, AUT, Streaming Peacock
2:45 p.m. FIS Alpine World Cup Women's Slalom, run 2 - LIVE, Flachau, AUT, Streaming Peacock
All streams will be available via desktop as well as mobile, tablet, and connected television platforms. The NBC Sports, Peacock TV, and Olympic Channel app are available on the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Store, Roku Channel Store, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire.
