Poutiainen and Palander make promising start to Alpine skiing season

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The FIS World Cup season got under way in Austria at the weekend, with Finland’s two leading hopes both putting in encouraging performances, although Tanja Poutiainen was annoyed with herself for failing to capitalise on a good first run in Saturday’s women’s giant slalom on the Rettenbach glacier in Sölden.
      She led by 0.17 seconds after the first run, but mistakes on her second descent relegated her to 4th behind winner Denise Karbon of Italy, the USA’s Julia Mancuso, and Austrian Kathrin Zettel, who edged Poutiainen off the podium by just five hundredths of a second.
     
If Poutiainen was briefly disappointed, she could take some consolation in the fact that of the early leaders only she and Karbon managed to come close on the second run.
      Last year’s overall World Cup winner Nicole Hosp of Austria saw her 3rd place dissolve into 12th, and Sweden’s Maria Pietilä-Holmner slipped from 4th to 11th. Poutiainen also finished well ahead of Sweden’s Anja Pärson in 7th.
     
On Sunday, Kalle Palander went one better and finished 3rd in his giant slalom season-opener, although Palander, too, could rue a few mistakes at the top of his first run.
      He was second at the halfway stage behind Ted Ligety of the United States, but neither man could do anything about the charge put up by last year’s World Cup winner and giant slalom World Champion Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway.
      Svindal absolutely flew down the track in his second run, pulling himself up from 6th place to take victory from Ligety by 0.32 seconds, with Palander a further 0.07 seconds back. Benjamin Raich of Austria was 4th, and Bode Miller (USA) made amends for a poor opening run and hauled himself up from 17th to 5th.
     
There was also an encouraging performance from 20-year-old Finn Marcus Sandell, who had two solid runs to finish in 26th place and collected five points in only his fifth World Cup giant slalom start.


Links:
  FIS pages
  Tanja Poutiainen
  Kalle Palander

Helsingin Sanomat