{"id":802031,"date":"2019-12-05T12:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T19:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/what-to-watch-as-birds-of-prey-returns\/"},"modified":"2019-12-05T12:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T19:56:00","slug":"what-to-watch-as-birds-of-prey-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/what-to-watch-as-birds-of-prey-returns\/","title":{"rendered":"What to watch as Birds of Prey returns"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.5560975609756\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-375526-486\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/12\/Column-VDN-120419-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/12\/Column-VDN-120419-1024x682.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"AP | The Canadian Press | Steven Nyman, of the United States, skis down the course during the men's World Cup super-G ski race in Lake Louise, Alberta, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019. (Frank Gunn\/The Canadian Press via AP)\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"15\">\n<p><strong>Steven Nyman, of the United States, skis down the course during the men&#8217;s World Cup super-G ski race in Lake Louise, Alberta, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019. (Frank Gunn\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/strong><br \/>AP | The Canadian Press<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/12\/Column-VDN-120419-1024x682.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Steven Nyman, of the United States, skis down the course during the men's World Cup super-G ski race in Lake Louise, Alberta, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019. (Frank Gunn\/The Canadian Press via AP)\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/12\/Column-VDN-120419-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/12\/Column-VDN-120419-1-1024x682.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Paul Sancya | Associated Press | AP | Ohio State enters the last week of the regular season as the No. 1-ranked team and plays Wisconsin in the Big 10 Championship on Saturday.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"8\">\n<p><strong>Ohio State enters the last week of the regular season as the No. 1-ranked team and plays Wisconsin in the Big 10 Championship on Saturday.<\/strong><br \/>Paul Sancya | Associated Press | AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/12\/Column-VDN-120419-1-1024x682.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Ohio State enters the last week of the regular season as the No. 1-ranked team and plays Wisconsin in the Big 10 Championship on Saturday.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/what-to-watch-as-birds-of-prey-returns\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/what-to-watch-as-birds-of-prey-returns\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">BEAVER CREEK \u2013 This is why they don\u2019t let me out of the office much.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I\u2019m five minutes into covering my 20th-something Birds of Prey races, and I\u2019ve already cut in front of U.S. Ski Team member Steve Nyman in line on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Note to self, No. 1: He\u2019s won three more World Cups than you, Freud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Note to self, No. 2: This is what makes the Xfinity Birds of Prey FIS World Cup race week really cool. Yeah, you just made an ass of yourself, but that was Steve Nyman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">We welcome back the white circus to town, minus a few memorable characters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I will miss Marcel Hirscher and his Lou Holtz-like news conferences. I\u2019m sure the Austrian has no idea who Holtz is, but he did the golden domer proud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI have no chance. It is impossible,\u201d Hirscher would say every year as he won eight consecutive World Cup titles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">One would have thought by globe No. 5 that he would have given that up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Cheers to Norway\u2019s Aksel Lund Svindal whose career nearly ended here in 2007 before it got going. Enjoy retirement. I remember riding the bus down with Svindal after he won the combined here in 2006. No one else on the bus recognized who the hell he was.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The men\u2019s World Cup is in a time of transition, a time with no megastar, which is actually fascinating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">As ski fans, if the megastar is ours, it\u2019s fun \u2014 ahem, Mikaela Shiffrin \u2014 but it\u2019s time to see the breadth of talent emerge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Subhead\">Previously on the men\u2019s World Cup \u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">\u2022 In Soelden, Austria, France\u2019s Alexis Pinturault edged France\u2019s Mathieu Faivre by 2-hundredths of a second in slalom,<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">\u2022 In Levi, it was Norway\u2019s Henrik Kristoffersen, France\u2019s Clement Noel, and Switzerland\u2019s Daniel Yule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">On the tech side of things, we\u2019re going to see a lot of Pinturault and Kristoffersen, the two racers most eclipsed by Hirscher.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">\u2022 In Lake Louise, Alberta, Germany Thomas Dressen won the downhill, one year to the date after crashing here in Beaver Creek.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">\u2022 In the super-G, Matthias Mayer (Austria) won on Sunday. Speed is just wide open.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Subhead\">Americans<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">\u2022 We may have buried the lead here. In Soelden, Tommy Ford was fourth, followed by some guy named Ted Ligety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Can Ted summon another dose of greatness at Birds of Prey? Shred hasn\u2019t won in four years (Soelden in 2015). If he\u2019s going to do it anywhere, it\u2019s going to be here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">\u2022 Travis Ganong and Nyman tied for 10th in the Lake Louise downhill, and Ganong was 12th in super-G. Ganong did his ACL at the beginning of calendar 2018, and couldn\u2019t have been at full strength for the 2018-19 season. Is he turning the corner?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Can Nyman bounce back from being cut on in line by a stupid sports writer and, more importantly, being injured for all of 2018-19?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">\u2022 How about Bryce Bennett, who has nine top 10s in downhill, but hasn\u2019t hit the podium yet?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText ListBullet\">\u2022 We\u2019re also excited to see youngsters with local roots like River Radamus and Kyle Negomir take their runs this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Subhead\">Austrians<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">This is the one week of the year when I regret being the first Freud in about 700 years not to speak German.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The Austrian Ski Team is covered like the New York tabloids cover the Yankees \u2014 on steroids. So what now for Austria without Hirscher?<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">He took a lot of heat off the team because he won a lot. Who\u2019s next for the preeminent ski power of the world? Mayer won in Canada. Vincent Kriechmayr, who won his first World Cup here in 2017, was third in super-G in Canada. Max Franz is the defending Birds of Prey super-G champ.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Stay tuned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Subhead\">Weather report<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Surprisingly good. Looks clear for super-G on Friday and downhill on Saturday. We\u2019ve got snow on Sunday, but that\u2019s fine for a GS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Subhead\">Looking north<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">As always, we watch here and have one eye turned north to the ladies in Lake Louise. This development just into our Vail Daily headquarters: Mikaela Shiffrin is still good at skiing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Norway\u2019s Kajsa Vickhoff Lie and Alice McKennis tied in the first downhill training in Alberta with Shiffrin 17-hundredths off the pace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Training doesn\u2019t mean anything until racers do this in actual races, but that\u2019s pretty amazing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Happy racing, everyone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\">This story is from VailDaily.com<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/what-to-watch-as-birds-of-prey-returns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Nyman, of the United States, skis down the course during the men&#8217;s World Cup super-G ski race in Lake Louise, Alberta, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019. (Frank Gunn\/The Canadian Press via AP)AP | The Canadian Press Ohio State enters the last week of the regular season as the No. 1-ranked team and plays Wisconsin in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-802031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 05:41:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}