Delirium tremens

Lindsay Vonn and Didier Kush’s victories and Didier Kusha arrived in the supergigant to the idea that the 2009 World Cup will go along the beaten path and everything will develop naturally. Where there, the next starts all turned upside down.

Still, skiing is an amazingly unpredictable sport. Well, who could have thought that not Lindsay Vonn, not Maria Rish and Anya Persson, and that none of these leaders of the general test of the World Cup, that is, the most stable and universal people, will not even be even in the three winners will win?

And the newly -minted world champion in high -speed descent with men John Coker - who is this? Three podiums at the stages of the World Cup, one victory in his native Lake Louise and even Superigant - is this really enough to be considered a contender for victory in the main start of two seasons?

However, there is nothing to be surprised here: the world skiing championships present such surprises regularly, and unexpected triumphs are no less than logical.

Lindsay Vonn and Didier Kush, undoubtedly, were considered the main favorites of the combination and high -speed descent. Both showed that they were in excellent shape, and the races had to have a lucid. This year, Vonn pulled it with slalom so that it seemed to fight her in combination only Maria Rish. But the German woman crashed greatly in training and the first part of the combination, high -speed descent, went so carefully that Vonn lost almost one and a half seconds. With the rest, the American was supposed to manage without noise and dust.

But they forgot to include her in the list of rivals, but Vonn is always capable of different feats. While she was waiting for her turn (the very last one, of course), Maria Rish managed to make a serious mistake in slalom, and the prize three looked as follows: Katrin Citter the first due to a decent descent and excellent slalom, Lara Gut - the second, Elizabeth Gergl - the third. Vonn had a huge margin of time in front of Cettel - one and a half seconds, so the American had to just go through the track normally. And here Vonn made the rivals, well, just a royal gift - she earned disqualification, entangled in the slalom gates. And the world champion became Catherine Cettel - a beautiful slalomist who has probably passed the best speed descent in his career. Vonn, of course, hoped to recoup on Sunday, but she was not lucky with the weather, and the speed was postponed to Monday.

If the Cettel could still be imagined by the world champion in combination (after all, one of the leaders of the general offset of the World Cup), then Canadian John Coker is a real little cutter. Canadians are famous for the fact that they can suddenly show something like that at the main starts. So the coachman who received the second starting number, on the move, improved the time of Hermann Mayer for a second and 18 hundredths. And the time of the derman was not trifling; It was enough to take sixth place. None of the late starting numbers, the main favorites, and managed to move the main favorites. The closest thing was Didier Kush. In order to become a two -time world champion of 2009, the Swiss did not have four hundredths of a second. The third place went to another employee of the White Cross - Carlo Yank.

World skiing championship

Val-D’s, France. February 3-15, 2009

Men. Downhill

1. D. Kucher (KAN) - 2.07.01

2. D. Kush (SHVC) - 2.07.05

3. K. Yanka (SHVC) - 2.07.18

4. M. Bochel (LIH) - 2.07.53

5. A. then (Fra) - 2.07.95

Women. Supercombination

1. K. Cettel (ABC) - 2.20.13

2. L. Gut (SHVC) - 2.20.69

3. E. Hergl (ABC) - 2.21.01

4. M. Rish (Ger) - 2.21.67

5. M. Marshan -Avier (Fra) - 2.22.62

02/08/2009 / Kirill Dementiev, the material was published in the "newspaper" No. 21 dated 09.02.2009.