After finishing a disappointing 15 th in Saturday’s downhill, Austria’s Hermann "The Hermanator" Maier re-established his dominance on the World Cup circuit with a convincing win in Sunday’s super G.
It was Maier’s 30 th World Cup victory and ninth in Cup super G – and it didn’t even feel like work.
"It’s nice to win," said Maier. "It was hard in the last three races and I am very happy about my attack today. It’s a really difficult super G, the gates are turning across the fall line and you have to carry your speed.
"I like hard races like this. I had also my girlfriend here with me. For me it was more holidays, but I was here to race."
Maier edged out Norwegian Lasse Kjus by just 0.32 seconds, finishing in a time of 1 minute 29.63 seconds. Andreas Schifferer of Austria finished third by one-tenth of a second.
The top Canadian was Calgary’s Darin McBeath, who roared out of the 66 th start position to finish a personal best 27 th place – just 2.5 seconds behind Maier.
"I had big expectations and put a lot of pressure on myself to do well this week," said McBeath. "Things didn’t turn out like I had hoped yesterday. I think the team tried to do too much. Today I really relaxed and didn’t let things affect me."
Although McBeath has been training at Lake Louise for the past 10 years, home-slope advantage is not all it’s cracked up to be. "I’ve skied this course more than anyone, but I can count on one hand how many times I’ve nailed this course," said McBeath.
Mike Giannelli of Burnaby, B.C., was the next Canadian in the rankings, finishing 44 th . Jeff Durand of Calgary finished 49 th , Chad Mullen of Chestermere, Alta., finished 55 th and Ed Podivinsky of Toronto was 61 st .
The next Canadian super G appearance will take place at Vail, Colorado this weekend.
