Picabo Street, Rasmussen Give U.S. a Double Downhill Day

Picabo Street celebrated a top-popping day in American ski racing history Saturday with her usual aplomb.

After becoming the first American to win the World Cup downhill championship with a victory at Lenzerheide, Switzerland, her fifth of the season, then learning that Kyle Rasmussen had made it a U.S. sweep with his downhill victory at Kvitfjell, Norway, Street kicked off her ski boots and cracked open a can of beer.

America, this spud’s for you.

Street, the 23-year-old, red-headed spitfire from Idaho, has always done things her own way, much to the consternation of her U.S. ski team coaches.

Three years after she was kicked off the U.S. team for insubordination, the daughter of ‘60s flower children has matured to full bloom and--along with Tamara McKinney and Cindy Nelson--has established herself as one of the greatest women’s skier in U.S. history.

Saturday’s U.S. sweep of the downhill was another crowning moment in American ski racing and another ski pole to the sides of European traditionalists, who had liked to scoff that while Americans could break through with the occasional, freakish Olympic victories, they were non-factors on the blue-collar, World Cup circuit.

So much for that notion. While the U.S. technical team is still a myth, the speed team is now a world power.

Saturday’s downhill daily-double marked the eighth and ninth World Cup victories for the U.S. team this season. It would have been victory No. 10 had the International Ski Federation (FIS) not overturned AJ Kitt’s victory last weekend in Aspen. For Street, the Olympic downhill silver medalist at Lillehammer, it was her fourth consecutive downhill victory. She has won more downhills this season than any U.S. skier has won in a career.

Austria’s Anne-Marie Moser-Proel holds the women’s downhill season record with eight victories in 1973.

Street began the season without a World Cup circuit victory.

“Now I’ve proven you can persevere and succeed every day,” Street said after the race. “It’s difficult to do. I’ve worked hard at it.”

Street won Saturday’s race with a last-second spurt, finishing the Lenzerheide course in 1 minute 50.57 seconds, six-hundredths of a second ahead of Russia’s Warwara Zelenskaja.

The difference, Street said later, was her line near the end.

“I had a little trick I had been saving,” she said. “I noticed in the first training run (Thursday) that if you banked off this turn near the bottom, you could pick up speed.

“Once I spotted it, I never went near that bank in training or inspection so no one else would pick up on it.”

American women have now won seven of the eight World Cup downhills this season, with Hilary Lindh claiming two of those.

Remarkably, it was the second time Street and Rasmussen have won downhills on the same weekend.

Rasmussen, like Street, was winless on the World Cup circuit before this season but broke through Jan. 21 when he became the first American to win the famed Lauberhornennen downhill at Wengen, Switzerland.

The next day, Street won the downhill at Cortina, Italy.

The 26-year old Rasmussen, from Angels Camp, Calif., won Saturday’s race on the Kvitfjell Olympic course in 1:37.10.

Rasmussen liked his chances, having finished second in the downhill portion of the Olympic combined at the Lillehammer Games.

Starting 27th, Rasmussen defeated Italy’s Kristian Ghedina by 11 hundredths of a second.

The only racer missing out on America’s downhill successes this season has been Olympic gold medalist Tommy Moe, still seeking his first World Cup downhill victory.

After taking a week off to rest minor injuries suffered in a crash at Whistler, Canada, Moe returned to Norway, site of his Olympic glory, but tore right knee ligaments during a crash in Friday’s super-G and is finished for the season.

“I think I might dedicate the victory to Tommy,” Rasmussen said. “That was really a bad deal yesterday, but for every up there’s a down.”

Kitt, who had his Aspen victory overturned Wednesday because only 31 of the 68 racers started because of poor weather, finished 20th in Saturday’s makeup race at Kvitfjell.

To make matters worse, race jurors upheld Italy’s Pietro Vitalini’s victory despite the fact that only 37 of the field of 74 started because of deteriorating conditions.

The U.S. ski team immediately filed a protest.

Kitt finished 11th in the afternoon downhill.