Schlopy slays Super Series

By Marina Knight

Erik Schlopy is back.
After being sidelined with a nagging knee injury, the U.S. veteran blasted back onto the scene Tuesday with a Nor-Am Super Series win at Keystone, Colo.
During the season’s opening World Cup giant slalom in Austria, Schlopy missed a second run after a tentative attempt on the Rettenbach glacier, and Schlopy finished 11th in A Nor-Am on Monday.
The win comes just in the nick of time, serving as a confidence builder before America’s opening races at Beaver Creek starting tomorrow. Schlopy, now a specialist, will race the giant slalom there on Saturday, Dec. 1.
Weeks before, between Soelden and the Keystone series, Schlopy switched equipment from Nordica to Atomic, the company Schlopy has seen his best results on.
Cyprien Richard and Thomas Frey, both Frenchman, finished behind Schlopy in 2nd and 3rd place, while American Jake Zamansky finished 4th.
Kjetil Jansrud, of Norway won the first run but slipped back to 6th place after a large mistake in the second. Other Americans in the top 15 were Tim Jitloff (9th) and former college racer Warner Nickerson (13th). Stowe’s Jimmy Cochran ended up 18th.

Click here to see the full results.

Tune in and watch skiing!

Ski fans are getting luckier and luckier as coverage of the sport improves. This year, there are several ways to follow the action from the comfort of your couch, assuming you have a high speed internet connection. Hopefully, one day we will get access to Eurosport, but until then here are the best ways to watch.

WEBCASTING
The World Championship Sports Network, WCSN.com
WCSN.com provides live or same-day coverage of every event on the Audi FIS World Cup for less than $5 dollars per month. WCSN.com has also enhanced the quality of its online viewer, and is providing live commentary for all alpine World Cups.

In addition to its scheduled Web cast coverage, all events are now available 'on-demand,' which means you can come back from skiing at anytime, simply logon and watch! You can even go back to the past two seasons!
Sign-up for WCSN here


LIVE TIMING
Die-hard fans can watch the action live on a digital scoreboard at livetiming.usskiteam.com . The free service provides live coverage of interval and finish times for all competitors, plus start lists and updated results. Simply click on the link and select the event from the left column. The start times are posted in Eastern Time for your convenience.


TV
The U.S. World Cups in Beaver Creek and Aspen will be broadcast nationally on NBC Sports and Versus, as well as on WCSN TV (except downhills - check local listings for WCSN TV). Click below for a complete broadcast schedule.
http://www.usskiteam.com/public/tv.php?&dId=6


RSS NEWS FEEDS
For those tech-savvy fans, the U.S. Ski Team also offers free RSS news feeds to bring the news direct to your computer desktop. Click on the link below to enter the feed into your reader.
http://www.usskiteam.com/public/xml/newsalpine.xml

Panorama and Lake Louise

By Marina Knight

The weekend was a blur of action with the men stopping in Lake Louise for speed events and the women racing tech in Panorama. Though Marco Sullivan, a Tahoe native, was the only U.S. skier to podium (second in the year’s opening downhill) there was plenty of excitement from the slopes.
Local skiers, Lauren Ross and Jessica Kelley sparked excellent runs in giant slalom. Kelley finished 22nd overall, equaling her second best World Cup performance. She was 17th last year at Sierra Nevada, Spain, and Kelley also won a Nor-Am on the same hill last March.
For her part, Ross came blazing from 61st position in the first run to 18th place ahead of Olympic giant slalom champion and teammate Julia Mancuso. Ross skied with confidence and precision, linking turns together and charging from start to finish.
During the second run, Ross hiccupped and crashed over a transition near the end of the course. After sliding to a stop she slammed her fist into the snow at missing her best giant slalom result in World Cup.
After the women’s races, Italian Denise Karbon came away with the giant slalom win, and Marlies Schild took away yet another slalom victory.
In Lake Louise a lack of snow, wind and flat light made an otherwise snore of a course fun to watch. Little snow pack brought the terrain on the trail into sharp relief, forcing skiers to feel their way over the bumps while hurtling downhill. For racers at the front of the pack and racers who started outside the top 30, the light was relatively good. For racers in the middle, cloudy skies made it difficult to see details. Of the top ten finishers, none started after bib 11 or before bib 29.
No doubt, this challenged racer number 16, Bode Miller and other downhill threatners, Aksel Svindal, Didier Cuche and Michael Walchhofer who started in between.