Mother Nature played a huge role in today’s event. The snow moved in early this morning and grew steadily heavier throughout the training and qualifying races. About 15 cm fell before noon, and only the late starting men had decent vision for the qualifying trial. The accumulation of snow resulted in a single-track race with little passing.
For the Canadian men in qualifying, Davey Barr led the men in 6th position, Stanley Hayer in 15th, Chris Del Bosco 18th, and Brian Bennett in 31st. The two Rookies, Dave Duncan and Cam Culbert attacked from the back of the pack and qualified 23rd and 24th respectively.
Cam Culbert had an impressive first heat, getting out of the start well and positioning himself behind the eventual winner, Tomas Krauss, and following him down for a birth in the quarterfinals. He was eliminated in the quarterfinal and finished the day in 14th.
Chris Del Bosco also tucked into second in his first round heat behind Enak Gavaggio and moved onto the quarters.
In Heat 8 of the men’s first round, saw an unlucky match up with 3 out of 4 competitors being Canadian team members Stanley Hayer, Dave Duncan and Brian Bennett. Unfortunately, the 4th skier was Michael Schmid who qualified 2nd and had just won at Tignes Airwaves Games. Stanley Hayer battled teammate Dave Duncan into the first turn for second in the heat. Schmid had a great start and Stan settled into 2nd place. Dave and Brian Bennett finished 3rd and 4th in the heat and 26th and 31st on the day.
Davey Barr had lane choice in his first round heat, but chose wrong and ran into some soft snow off of the first jump. He had a great start, but was slowed down and was passed on the landing. He was disappointed in third for that heat and his day ended early in 18th. “I can’t believe I chose that lane for the start. I should have picked the lane that we started out of for the qualifying heat with all the soft snow around. I thought I had a better line to the first turn, but the snow was slow there. I learned a lesson today and I won’t do that again.”
Chris and Stan met each other in their quarterfinal heat along with Enak Gavaggio and Michael Schmid. They came out of the start with Chris in 3rd and Stan in 4th. Further down the course, Chris made a daring pass on Schmid and held on to move into the semi-finals behind Gavaggio. Stanley was unable to find his energy in the quarterfinal and ended his day in 11th. “I felt sluggish and had no energy. I was tired today and just couldn’t get it going.”
Del Bosco’s run to the final ended in the semi’s by finishing 3rd in his heat. “I was all over him (Richard Spallinger) the whole way down! I just couldn’t find the room to get by him this time,” said Chris after his semi heat. He went back around and fought it out with Lars Lewen in the consolation final and bird-dogged him all the way to the finish, but couldn’t lay down the pass there either. He had a strong day finishing 6th in only his 2nd World Cup.
Ashleigh McIvor decided to give it a go, despite her sore shoulder, and at least try for another qualifying result to go with her 4th place finish in Les Contamines. She qualified in 7th position and was happy to get down the course. Julia Murray was a solid rookie again with 9th. Anik Demers had trouble on her qualifying run and finished outside the top 20. Gillian McFettridge shook out the cobwebs and made it to the finish today, but missed qualifying for the heat racing by .2 of a second in 19th. Alyssa Wilson had a crash during her run, but jumped back up and made it to the finish. She was 30th in qualifying.
Julia raced hard today in her first heat getting out of the start in 3rd. She was following Magdelena Iljans when Iljans crashed in front of her. When asked what happened Julia said, “I’m not sure, I think Magda crashed and then I skied over her helmet and then I think I crashed too. I don’t know for sure, but I’m a little sore.” Julia finished the day in 12th.
The story of the day was Ashleigh. 3 days ago, it took doctors 20 minutes to get her shoulder back into place after separating it in the semi-finals in Les Contamines. She was only going to try to get a good result by qualifying well today. In round 1, she found herself in 2nd out of the start and decided to go with it, moving into the semi-finals. After a slow start in the semi’s, she pulled off the course and decided to regroup for the consolation final. She pulled out of the start and somehow managed the hole shot and pulled away from Karin Huttary to win the heat, and finish 5th on the day. Erik Archer had this to say about Ashleigh, ‘I really didn’t think she would want to race but I thought if we could get her to just get to finish in qualifying, she’d keep a decent FIS rank for next year. Adrenaline carried her through today and she kept going around for more. She showed me some incredible guts today.”
MEN’S RESULTS
1ST THOMAS KRAUS
2ND ENAK GAVAGGIO
3RD RICHARD SPALINGER
6TH CHRIS DEL BOSCO
11TH STANLEY HAYER
14TH CAM CULBERT
18TH DAVEY BARR
26TH DAVE DUNCAN
31ST BRIAN BENNETT
WOMEN’S RESULTS
1ST MERYL BOULANGEAT
2ND JENNY OWENS
3RD NORIKO FUKUSHIMA
5TH ASHLEIGH MCIVOR
12TH JULIA MURRAY
19TH JILL MCFETRIDGE
21ST ANIK DEMERS-WILD
31ST ALYSSA WILSON