Gut Wins Garmisch Super G, Noel Wins Chamonix SL

Lara Gut Behrami (SUI) earned the victory in today’s Audi FIS World Cup super-G in Garmisch-Partenkirchen by a clear 0.68 margin.

Norway’s Kajsa Lie Vickhoff started bib two and had what looked like it might be an unbeatable run...until Switzerland’s Lara Gut came down into the lead, by a whopping .68 seconds. Rounding out the podium in somewhat of a surprise finish, was neighbor to the north, Alpine Canada’s Marie-Michele Gagnon, .93 seconds back in third. Gagnon, also known as “Mitch,” started bib 29th and crossed the finish line in third, saying to the camera “I didn’t expect that!”

Gagnon, who also is U.S. Ski Team athlete Travis Ganong’s longtime girlfriend, hasn’t been on the podium since 2016 when she won the alpine combined at Soldeu, Andorra. This is her first super-G podium. Gut, on the other hand, is no stranger to the podium, claiming her third-straight super-G victory and her third super-G victory at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It was Vickhoff’s maiden World Cup podium.

While it was a familiar face topping the podium the other two places went to big surprises. Making her debut in the top-three after 45 World Cup starts was Norwegian Kajska Vickhoff Lie, who put down a fast time as the second racer down the course, the nearly withstood the entire field. Lie is having a strong season after she earned her only other career top-five finish earlier this season in the Val d’Isere downhill.

The second surprise of the day came late in the race as veteran Canadian Marie-Michele Gagnon, knocked Sofia Goggia off the podium wearing bib 29. It was the first career podium for Gagnon in the super-G and just the fifth of her career. The last time she landed in the top three was in the combined in Soldeu in 2016. Gagnon was 0.93 off the winning pace, edging Goggia by 0.07 seconds for the final podium place.

It was fourth straight podium for Gut-Behrami and her third straight super-G victory. The win brought her career total victory tally to 29. The victory pulled Gut Behrami into second place in the overall World Cup standings behind Petra Vlhova. She now also has a commanding lead in the super-G season standings with a 140-point advantage over teammate Corrine Suter.

U.S. Alpine Ski Team athlete Isabella “Bella” Wright once again led the crew in super-G, grabbing 29th—her sixth-straight points-scoring FIS Ski World Cup result—on a balmy day in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Wright continues to show consistency, scoring her sixth-straight World Cup points-scoring finish, but she’s hungry for more and is looking forward to another opportunity in super-G on Sunday. The classic speed series in Garmisch was supposed to feature a downhill and a super-G, but Mother Nature had other plans. Warm temperatures, rain at the bottom, and snow at the top wreaked havoc on the Kandahar track. Despite challenging conditions, the organizers were able to prep the slope well for Saturday’s super-G and the athletes are happy to have gotten a race off at all. That said, Breezy Johnson—who has four podium finishes this year in downhill—was looking forward to skiing downhill on one of her favorite tracks.

“I was definitely looking forward to Garmisch because it’s one of my favorite downhill tracks,” Johnson said after her 34th in Saturday’s super-G. “It’s where I got my first top-five, and my first points, so it means a lot to me. With the weather, it just wasn’t really possible, and I’m glad that we got something off at all. Mentally, it’s kind of good to focus on super-G for a weekend, but I like to switch up the tracks and I like skiing all of the different downhill tracks...so having one less downhill in the season is kind of a bummer. Hopefully, they’ll make up the race in Val di Fassa.”

Johnson’s eyes are still on the prize, and she’s looking to climb that podium on the big stage at Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. “I don’t know that it changes my mentality going into World Champs at all, but I’m definitely very eager to get to Cortina,” she added.

Also starting for the Americans on Saturday were AJ Hurt in 39th, Jackie Wiles in 41st, and Laurenne Ross—who did not finish, but is OK and skied down.

Soggy weather throughout much of central Europe wreaked havoc with the Garmisch organizers. A combination of rain and heavy, wet snow made it impossible to hold a downhill training the last two days, therefore today’s planned downhill was switched to a super-G. Today, slightly better conditions greeted the racers, but the weather was still less than ideal.

Clement Noel was always close to his first victory of the 2020-21 season, and today he finally got it in a tight race that came down to the wire edging Ramon Zenhaeusern by 0.16 seconds.

Noel’s last slalom victory came last season, also in Chamonix. Since then, he has found himself in a strong position after the first run many times, but unable to string together two strong runs for the victory. Today was Noel’s third podium of the season, after earning two second-places this year.

It was an exciting race from start to finish as just 0.03 seconds separated the top-three racers after the first run. Marco Schwarz sat in first place after the first run, and ultimately ended in third on the day. Meanwhile Noel climbed from third place into first, while Zenhaeusern stayed steady in second place in both runs.

Schwarz has been one of the most consistent performers on tour this season. The Austrian has only finished out of the top-10 twice in the last ten races and has seven podiums to his credit during the same span.

The near-fairy tale ending nearly came for Luca Aerni, who barely made the second run in 29th place, but finally would finish the day in fourth place 0.47 seconds off the winning pace. Aerni had an incredibly second run topping the rest of the field by 0.88 seconds. Racer-after-racer came down and could not knock Aerni out of the leader’s char, until today’s Big 3 were at the start gate.