Italian rewarded for taking risks

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Matteo Marsaglia from Italy, reacts on the finish area after his run in the men's World Cup super-g ski race in Beaver Creek, Colo., on Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012. (ALESSANDRO TROVATI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

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Austrian Hannes Reichel turned on the jets but he wasn't fast enough to outpace winner Matteo Marsaglia Saturday in Colorado. (NATHAN BILOW / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. -- For some of the skiers, the super-G course was so treacherous and tricky that it was a wipeout waiting to happen.

For Matteo Marsaglia, the hill was just risky enough that it presented an opportunity to finally break through.

The 27-year-old Italian took big gambles in places where few others would Saturday for his first World Cup victory. He finished in 1 minute, 14.68 seconds to edge Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway by 0.27 seconds. Hannes Reichelt of Austria was third, and Ted Ligety of the United States wound up fourth.

Calgary's Jan Hudec was 10th, Erik Guay of Mont-Tremblant, Que., was 11th. John Kucera, also from Calgary, was 41st.

"If you want to win, you need to take some risks," said Marsaglia, who had never finished better than fourth before this race. "On this slope, you need to take some risks, be lucky a little bit. I was lucky."

The margin between a good run and going off course was slim on the tight Birds of Prey layout. There were 16 skiers who didn't finish -- along with one who didn't even start -- and several big wipeouts.

Germany's Stephan Keppler, the first racer of the day, had a bad spill, when he lost his balance and crashed. He slid halfway down the mountain before winding up in the netting. But he walked away with only a cut above his left eye.

Max Franz of Austria wasn't so fortunate. He smacked a gate on his run and fell hard to the snow, bumping his head. Franz was taken down the hill on a sled and to a hospital for observation.

The first mishap of the day certainly scared reigning World Cup overall champion Marcel Hirscher of Austria. He watched Keppler's crash and decided he wasn't going to take any chances. Not on this challenging course and especially not in just his fifth-ever super-G start.

"When I saw that, I was like, 'Whoa, little Marcel, this might be a step too much for you. Do it pretty slow and comfortably. Do not risk everything,"' Hirscher said.

And when he saw his teammate go down, Hirscher just shook his head.

"You have to risk everything. It's not worth it," he said of the course. "It's not fair."

Unfair? Svindal didn't quite see it that way.

"Too hard is not unfair," said Svindal, who finished second in the downhill Friday. "Unfair is if fog is moving in in the middle of the race. That's unfair. A difficult course, for sure.

"To be honest, the courses where you're like, 'This might work, but there's a 50-50 chance it's not going to work' -- they're not my favourites. When Reichelt was leading, I was happy. I knew he was a solid skier and he doesn't go out very often. That tells me, 'Ski this well and you can win it.' Then Marsaglia goes up and he took major risks. I knew that's going to be tough to beat."

Marsaglia simply turned in a flawless run. He found speed in sections of the hill where other skiers were hitting the brakes.

"Amazing run," said Marsaglia, from Rome. "I really like this slope. I like this slope a lot. I tried to push everything. I had nothing to lose today."

No, he definitely didn't.

But Hirscher felt like he did, especially since his best event -- the giant slalom -- is today.

"Those guys wanted to win. So, they risked everything," said Hirscher, who finished 2.34 seconds behind Marsaglia in 32nd place. "I have to learn a lot."

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 2, 2012 B16