Thrilling 7th for Ganong in Bormio

BORMIO, Italy (Dec. 29) - Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, CA) delivered a gutsy run on the grueling Stelvio downhill to finish a career best seventh in Bormio. The second longest downhill on the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup tour, the Stelvio is known for its leg punishing ice and bumps while racers hit speeds of 75 mph. It was the tightest race in recent history with the top four separated by a mere .02 seconds. Austrian Hannes Reichelt and Itlaian Dominik Paris tied for the win, .01 in front of World Cup downhill and overall leader Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, CA) landed a career best Audi FIS Alpine World Cup finish with seventh in the rugged Stelvio downhill.
• It was the tightest World Cup podium since 1992 (Panorama, DH) with the top four separated by .02 seconds.
• Austrian Hannes Reichelt tied Italian Dominik Paris for the win ahead of Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway.
• Ganong was .49 from the win after skiing from bib 25. Steven Nyman (Sundance, UT) finished 26th and Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) 33rd.
• The punishing Stelvio downhill bucked 11 of the 55 starters off course, including Tommy Biesemeyer (Keene, NY).
• Universal Sports Network will broadcast the Stelvio at 9 a.m. ET with reair at 10:30 a.m., 4 and 11 p.m. ET.

QUOTES
Travis Ganong
You have to be gutsy on this course. It’s such a challenging hill. It never lets up. There are so many key turns, terrain and jumps that you have to nail. It’s bumpy and dark and it’s inevitable that you’ll have a mistake, but whoever can push through that, will be fast.

I had some pretty good training runs, but I wasn’t really pushing in those as hard as I could have. Today, I knew my line and I was just pushing from top to bottom. I definitely didn’t have a perfect run, but I was attacking.

Finally I’m figuring out how to mentally attack these downhills. Before I was always kind of nervous because it was my first or second time skiing these courses. But this is my third year in Bormio and I feel like I can just relax a little bit and have fun. I love to ski and in the last few years I had to tone back how I ski because you have to really learn these downhills before you can attack. Now I feel that I know them, I can attack and I can be up there with the best guys.

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