Season's finals - 11/17 March - Lenzerheide

Last week of this season.

Both ladies and men in Lenzerheide to race the four classic disciplines plus the team event (No super-combined).

Calendar

Wednesday 13.03 at 9.30 CET Men's Downhill 

Wednesday 13.03 at 11.30 CET Ladies' Downhill

Thursday 14.03 at 9.30 CET Men's Super-G

Thursday 14.03 at 11.30 CET Ladies' Super-G

Friday 15.03 at 10.30 CET Team Event

Saturday 16.03 Ladies' Slalom Run 1 at 9.00 CET / Run 2 at 11.30 CET
Saturday 16.03 Men's Giant-Slalom Run 1 at  10.00 CET / Run 2 at 12.30 CET

Sunday 17.03 Men's Slalom Run 1 at 9.00 CET / Run 2 at 11.30 CET
Sunday 17.03 Ladies' Giant-Slalom Run 1 at  10.00 CET / Run 2 at 12.30 CET

Men's Downhill
Here's the discpline's standing that is also the list of partecipants as those with more than 500 overall points not directly qualified won't run and also Nils Mani, World Junior Champion, won't be there preferring to compete for Europa Cup and gain points (only top 15 get points in the) and possibly a world cup spot for next year.

1	Aksel Lund	Svindal	NOR	439
2	Klaus	Kroell	AUT	381
3	Dominik	Paris	ITA	378
4	Christof	Innerhofer	ITA	370
5	Hannes	Reichelt	AUT	290
6	Erik	Guay	CAN	267
7	Adrien	Theaux	FRA	232
8	Georg	Streitberger	AUT	205
9	Max	Franz	AUT	201
10	Werner	Heel	ITA	184
11	Kjetil	Jansrud	NOR	184
12	Johan	Clarey	FRA	174
13	Manuel	Osborne-Paradis	CAN	143
14	Marco	Sullivan	USA	134
15	David	Poisson	FRA	128
16	Rok	Perko	SLO	120
17	Romed	Baumann	AUT	119
18	Travis	Ganong	USA	114
19	Joachim	Puchner	AUT	114
20	Steven	Nyman	USA	105
21	Jan	Hudec	CAN	103
22	Florian	Scheiber	AUT	102
23	Andrej	Sporn	SLO	99
24	Peter	Fill	ITA	96
25	Matthias	Mayer	AUT	92

This is going to be the most important race of the whole week.

The Downhill Cup is open to many solution as Svindal leads over three competitor: Kroell, Paris and Innerhofer. The norvegian has a margin good enough, 58 points but a conservative run is not for him.

In fact Svindal has the Overall Standing clash to keep in his mind, Hirscher is 149 points away (1375 to Svindal's 1226) and is not racing this one. A bad or a poor result from the viking will mean a lot also for the rest of the week.

Amazing price on Svindal, ok he's got to win and he is in good shape and he is the discipline leader and so on, but he hasn't been so dominant in downhill.
Reichelt won the only training made so it's difficult to understand how it's really going to be, but I'd say Paris and Kroell are nice prices to bet on.  

Ladies' Downhill

This is going to be a strange race.

For as weird as it sounds Maze has everything to lose, and losing to someone who's not even running well, I don't know...

Maze proved several times that math is not for her and hardly she will start to play with calculus tomorrow, but who knows...

1	Lindsey C.	Kildow Vonn	USA	340
2	Tina	Maze	SLO	339
3	Maria	Riesch Hoefl	GER	272
4	Stacey	Cook	USA	244
5	Lara	Gut	SUI	228
6	Tina	Weirather	LIE	224
7	Daniela	Merighetti	ITA	216
8	Anna	Fenninger	AUT	209
9	Julia	Mancuso	USA	202
10	Alice	Mckennis	USA	198
11	Marion	Rolland	FRA	196
12	Nadja	Kamer	SUI	180
13	Leanne	Smith	USA	180
14	Marie	Marchand-Arvier	FRA	178
15	Carolina	Ruiz Castillo	SPA	169
16	Laurenne	Ross	USA	166
17	Regina	Mader Sterz	AUT	162
18	Stefanie	Moser	AUT	147
19	Dominique	Gisin	SUI	127
20	Fraenzi	Aufdenblatten	SUI	121
21	Marianne	Abderhalden	SUI	116
22	Elena	Fanchini	ITA	100
23	Viktoria	Rebensburg	GER	90
24	Elisabeth	Goergl	AUT	84
25	Ilka	Stuhec	SLO	64

To these there's to add Jennifer Piot Golden Medal at the Junior Champs, while Ruiz-Castillo, McKennis and as well known Vonn won't start.

Maze favorite has been a must for the whole season so no surprise.

That odds are shoking though, suggesting Maze has a little less than 30% of probabilities of winning.

Maze has won only 1 of 8 Downhill this season (3 of 10 if you include the DH of the two super- combineds). And opponents as Gut and Fenninger are in good shape in this final part of the season.

Men's Super-G

Svindal has already seized this Globe but again there's the Overall Standing to fight for.

1	Aksel Lund	Svindal	NOR	480
2	Matteo	Marsaglia	ITA	249
3	Matthias	Mayer	AUT	228
4	Werner	Heel	ITA	224
5	Adrien	Theaux	FRA	191
6	Hannes	Reichelt	AUT	161
7	Ted	Ligety	USA	159
8	Kjetil	Jansrud	NOR	154
9	Joachim	Puchner	AUT	154
10	Georg	Streitberger	AUT	151
11	Erik	Guay	CAN	111
12	Johan	Clarey	FRA	108
13	Christof	Innerhofer	ITA	107
14	Klaus	Kroell	AUT	104
15	Jan	Hudec	CAN	92
16	Siegmar	Klotz	ITA	74
17	Peter	Fill	ITA	70
18	Max	Franz	AUT	68
19	Andreas	Romar	FIN	58
20	Romed	Baumann	AUT	53
21	Gauthier	De Tessieres	FRA	47
22	Thomas	Mermillod Blondin	FRA	46
23	Dominik	Paris	ITA	44
24	Patrick	Kueng	SUI	43
25	Florian	Scheiber	AUT	37

To add the Junior Champ Thomas Mayrpeter and also Hirscher will be part of the race.

Although it was is only one of the season, the Super-G at the finals played a great role in Hirscher's World Cup campaign last year as he took great advantage of the snow conditions that favourited early starters and also of a friendly course setting which made the Super-G look like a Giant-Slalom. Hirscher was 3rd place then.

Odds not out by now.


Ladies' Super-G
55 points to separate Maze and runner-up Mancuso.
Also this sound like a formality for Maze

1	Tina	Maze	SLO	420
2	Julia	Mancuso	USA	365
3	Anna	Fenninger	AUT	304
4	Lindsey C.	Kildow Vonn	USA	286
5	Maria	Riesch Hoefl	GER	251
6	Viktoria	Rebensburg	GER	246
7	Fabienne	Suter	SUI	195
8	Nicole	Schmidhofer	AUT	149
9	Tina	Weirather	LIE	147
10	Lara	Gut	SUI	144
11	Carolina	Ruiz Castillo	SPA	128
12	Leanne	Smith	USA	125
13	Laurenne	Ross	USA	104
14	Elisabeth	Goergl	AUT	101
15	Dominique	Gisin	SUI	99
16	Regina	Mader Sterz	AUT	99
17	Fraenzi	Aufdenblatten	SUI	98
18	Veronique	Hronek	GER	97
19	Elena	Curtoni	ITA	91
20	Nicole	Hosp	AUT	88
21	Andrea	Fischbacher	AUT	81
22	Tessa	Worley	FRA	80
23	Marion	Rolland	FRA	77
24	Marie	Marchand-Arvier	FRA	71
25	Stefanie	Koehle	AUT	66

Vonn and Ruiz-Castilly out. 

This odds make the ones of the downhill look even more shocking.

Maze has been much better in Super-G, 4th place is her worst result, than in dowhill.

She's the perfect Super-Ger the right mix of power and technique and that ability "to ski" that SG requres (remember that there are no practice sessions for the Super-G so you don't actually know how to approach turns in race mode, while downhill has practice sessions)