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Show WcditM CCunjp SMnimg Christmas break sees Americans sitting far back in the pack If Santa Claus were a World Cup skier, even he would have been hard pressed to find any action this week on the circuit, as only three events were contested before the skiers took their Christmas break Saturday. Of those three events only one was in alpine, a women's downhill at Santa Caterina, Italy. The other two events were nordic, a women's relay and a men's combined. The U.S. contingent didn't do so well in any of the three. The Santa Caterina downhill was originally scheduled for Thursday but postponed a day due to heavy snow which fell Tuesday night: over two feet on most of the course. In a year where there has been barely enough snow at most World Cup destinations, to have a day of training runs cancelled because of avalanche danger was a new twist. Finally the women got to train Thursday, and then held the race Friday. After Thursday's training runs, Cindy Nelson, America's veteran racer, commented on the course: "It just kind of rolls on down the mountain. The terrain has been mostly filled in with the soft snow, so it's not very difficult that way. It's the kind of course you can do almost all the way in your tuck, so it's going to be a race where nobody will be afraid of anything. The times should be very close and anybody can win. ' ' Unfortunately, the U.S. times weren't very close to the top on Friday. The top American was Lisa Wilcox in 23rd, 1.38 seconds off the pace of Austria's Elisabeth Kirchler, the race winner. In fact, the Austrian women swept the top three spots and six of the top ten. Kirchler was tops at 1:24.60, with teammates Veronika Vitzthum in second at 1:24.79, and Katrin Gutensohn in third at 1:24.88. Gutensohn came from the 27 th starting position. Nelson wasn't able to maintain her tuck as she had planned the day before she almost crashed. "I caught an edge and just don't know how I stayed up," she explained. "I didn't know I could make a recovery like that." She finished 47th. At the Christmas break, the American women aren't exactly tearing up the alpine circuit. Tamara McKinney stands at the top American, 12th in the overall World Cup standings. She has 41 points. Overall leader Marina Kiehl of West Germany has 88. Other U.S. skiers include Debbie Armstrong in 20 th with 23 points, Eva Twardokens and Diann Roffe tied for 31st with 11 points, and Cindy Nelson and Holly Flanders at 59th with one point each. The women's nordic skiers didn't do much better. They had their chance Dec. 19 in Davos, Switzerland Switzer-land in a 20 kilometer relay, but could do no better than 10th. Winning the relay was Norway, thanks in large part to Grete Nykkelmo, who opened up a 32 second lead on her opening leg. Norway held on for a six second win over the second place team from the Soviet Union. In third place was Sweden. The American contingent was made up of Sue Long, Kristen Petty, Pat Engberg, and Cami Thompson. The nordic men also competed in one event during the week, a nordic combined in St. Moritz, Switzerland. West Germany's Hubert Schwarz was the only jumper in the field of 57 to go over 90 meters in the jumping portion, and held the lead after that segment Thursday. But on Friday in the 15 kilometer cross country portion Norway's Geir Andersen put on the blaze to win the overall event. Schwarz started the cross country race nearly two minutes ahead of his closest rival due to the jumping handicap he had built up. He couldn't hold off Andersen, however, how-ever, as the Norwegian overtook him on a steep uphill about half a kilometer from the finish and ran away with the remainder of the race. Schwarz ended up in second. Pat Ahern was the top U.S. skier, finishing ninth in the cross country race, 17 th in the jumping, eighth overall. Other Americans were far back in the pack. J |
