Marie Michele Gagnon 19th in super combined as FIS World Cup resumes
ARE, SWE (February 25, 2011) - Marie-Michèle Gagnon finished 19th in Are, Sweden, on Friday when the ladies took part in the second to last World Cup super combined event of the season.
Gagnon of Lac-Etchemin, Que., crossed the finish line with a two-run combined time of two minutes 03.14 seconds. She was 36th after the super-G run but managed to bump herself up into the top 20.
"I was pretty disappointed after my super-G run. I need to change my approach in speed events, said Gagnon, 22. "When I race technical events I want to win and go as fast as I can, but I don't think the same way yet when I race speed. I need to start thinking like that and need to cut time off of my runs.
"I needed to make it into the top 30 in super-G, that would have drastically changed the outcome of my end result. I would have been able to have an early start in slalom and race on a clean course. In this case, I had to start after all the fastest girls and the course was rougher."
Gagnon did not take part in the two downhill training runs that were scheduled Wednesday and Thursday. Instead, she trained slalom for two days.
"I really needed those two days of slalom. I hadn't trained it for a while and I felt like I was losing it a little bit," added Gagnon. "It was great training and I felt great coming into the slalom portion of the race."
Gagnon's best super combined career result was a 12th place finish in Val d'Isère, France, last December.
The winner of the super combined race was the overall World Cup leader Maria Riesch from Germany. She finished in a time of 1:59.60. Second place went to giant slalom world champion Tina Maze from Slovenia with a time of 2:00.00. Double world champion Austrian Elisabeth Goergl rounded out the podium (2:00.26).
"We knew that it would be difficult for Mitch to get a top 30 in the super-G event but that was the key in order to get a good ranking today," said ladies team head coach Hugues Ansermoz. "She made a couple of mistakes here and there and that's why she finished in 36th place."
"We knew that if she had a solid slalom run she could rank between 15th and 20th and she finished 19th. Her slalom run was good, but I know she can do even better. I think she did a good job considering everything."
Whistler's Britt Janyk only took part in the super-G portion of the race in order to get some training in. She completed the run in a time of 1:16.96 and ranked 33rd.
The ladies will race the downhill event in Are on Saturday. Tune in early to watch it live on CBCSports.ca and BOLD starting at 4:45 a.m. E.T. CBC's main network will be showing the race at 4:30 p.m. E.T. Saturday.
