Five U.S. men in top 30 in Birds of Prey super-G; Shiffrin finishes fourth at Lake Louise

Five American men all packed into the World Cup points (top 30) in Saturday’s snowy Xfinity Birds of Prey World Cup super-G race won by Austria’s Max Franz, and EagleVail’s Mikaela Shiffrin finished just off the podium in a women’s World Cup downhill at Lake Louise, Canada.

First, here’s the U.S. Ski Team press release on the men’s race:

Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, Calif.) led five of his teammates into the top 30, finishing 15th, in Saturday’s Birds of Prey FIS Ski World Cup super-G. Ryan Cochran-Siegle (Starksboro, Vt.) was 17th; Steven Nyman (Squaw Valley, Calif.) was 20th; Ted Ligety (Park City, Utah) was 22nd; and Tommy Biesemeyer (Keene, N.Y) was 26th.

“Today I was ready to push a little harder, turn my brain off and just enjoyed it,” said Ganong, who missed the 2018 Olympic Winter Games after suffering an ACL injury in Bormio, Italy, last season. “I’m getting to that point now where I’ve had a couple races under my belt and I’m starting to find that fire again, and just relax and enjoy it.”

Max Franz of Austria took the victory ahead of Switzerland’s Mauro Caviezel in second and Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal, Italy’s Dominik Paris and Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde all tied for third.

For the second-straight day, weather forced race organizers to postpone the start time and to lower the start, which provided a short, fast course which saw five racers who started outside the top 30 finish in the top 15. However, the most impressive performance of the day belonged to Nyman, who started with bib 64 and finished 20th.

“This course crew did a pretty phenomenal job for the conditions and the weather that came in,” Cochran-Siegle said of the Talon Crew, who pulled an all-nighter clearing more than a foot of snow off the course.

Up next, the men’s will race giant slalom Sunday at Beaver Creek. The first run, set for 9:45 a.m. — free and open to the public — will be broadcast on the Olympic Channel and stream on NBC Sports Gold. The second run, scheduled for 2:45 p.m., will be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network and NBC Sports Gold.

Go to the Vail Valley Foundation website for more information.

Now here’s the U.S. Ski Team press release on Shiffrin’s near-podium finish at Lake Louise:

Shiffrin Further Extends World Cup Lead

Mikaela Shiffrin (Avon, Colo.) further extended her overall World Cup lead after finishing fourth in Saturday’s FIS Ski World Cup downhill in Lake Louise, Alberta.

“I’m pretty psyched with today,” Shiffrin said after her run. “Yesterday I felt a little bit disconnected and not really attacking as much as I’d like, but today I think it was a really big step in the right direction and I felt good on my skis, and felt like I made some really good turns so I’m psyched with that.”

Shiffrin led through the first three intervals but lost a bit of time on the lower section of the course to just miss the podium in only her eighth career downhill. With her fourth-place finish though, she extended her overall World Cup lead to 156 points over Austria’s Nicole Schmidhofer, who won for the second straight day at Lake Louise. Austria’s Cornelia Huetter was second, followed by Switzerland’s Michelle Gisin, who posted her second-straight podium, finishing third Saturday.

Alice Merryweather (Hingham, Mass.) scored World Cup points for the second straight day, finishing 24th.

Now, Shiffrin will have to switch gears to super-G. “I’m going to try to go back and watch a little video from this summer when I was training super-G and switch gears and bring back my focus points from those training camps and see if I can bring that into tomorrow and attack a bit,” Shiffrin said. “I haven’t had any super-G training for a while, so it’s kind of, like, winging it a little bit.”

Up next, the women race super-G at Lake Louise, and will be broadcast live on the Olympic Channel and streamed on NBC Sports Gold.

RESULTS
Men’s super-G
Women’s downhill

HOW TO WATCH
All times EST
*Same-day delayed broadcast

Saturday, Dec. 1
6:00 p.m. – World Cup men’s super-G, Beaver Creek, Colo. – Olympic Channel*
10:00 p.m. – World Cup women’s downhill, Lake Louise, CAN – Olympic Channel*

Sunday, Dec. 2
1:00 p.m. – World Cup men’s giant slalom, run 1, Beaver Creek, Colo. – NBC Sports Gold & Olympic Channel
1:00 p.m. – World Cup women’s super-G, Lake Louise, CAN – NBC Sports Gold & Olympic Channel
2:30 p.m. – World Cup men’s giant slalom, run 2, Beaver Creek, Colo. – NBC Sports Gold & NBCSN
5:00 p.m. – World Cup men’s giant slalom recap, Beaver Creek, Colo. – NBC*
6:30 p.m. – World Cup women’s super-G recap, Lake Louise, CAN – NBCSN*
11:30 p.m. – World Cup men’s giant slalom, run 2, Beaver Creek, Colo. – Olympic Channel*