Clark eyes national downhill title today

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. – A year ago, weather canceled the downhill at the U.S. Alpine Championships, preventing Kirsten Clark of Raymond, Maine, from extending her four-year winning streak in the event. She’s back to try for No. 5, and the weather again has become a factor.

The temperature rose to around 40 degrees Tuesday at Whiteface Mountain, and a forecast of rain for later in the week forced officials to move the downhill up one day to Wednesday morning.

“You can’t control Mother Nature,” men’s head coach Phil McNichol said Tuesday. “But the people here have gone out of their way to make the course good. They had a lot of snow and cold weather, but they lost a foot of snow in one day.”

It was ironic development because it has been a frigid winter in the Adirondack Mountains. Aerials competition in December was conducted in minus-20 conditions, and the Bobsled World Championships last month at nearby Mount Van Hoevenberg began on a morning when the thermometer read minus-35 at daybreak.

This event was moved three weeks ago from Alaska to Whiteface because of deteriorating snow conditions, but downhill training was canceled Monday and conditions were soft on Tuesday under sunny skies.

“It’s just a warm-weather thing,” Paul Van Slyke said after he and his crew spread 2,000 pounds of nitrate on the course to bond the snow and firm it up. “Four days ago, we were spraying the hill with fire hoses because it was too dry. That’s the extremes that we’ve gone from.”

Despite the sudden warmth, the overnight low was expected to plummet to near zero, and that was good news.

“The weather forecast is in our favor because it’s supposed to get cold tonight,” Van Slyke said. “If it gets down to 5 tonight, we’ll have the ideal racing surface. The mountain is fantastic.”

As for that fifth straight downhill title:

“I’m definitely going to be going for it,” said Clark, who finished third in the final downhill standings and ninth in the overall, the best World Cup performance of her career. “I hope the snow’s a little bit harder, but not too hard.

“I’m definitely looking forward to the end of the season, but it was such a good season for me that it sort of didn’t seem too long.”

Jakub Fiala had the fastest time of 1 minute, 36.83 seconds among the 51 men who finished their training runs Tuesday. Steven Nyman was .23 behind and Jeremy Transue was third, a full second behind Fiala.

Julia Mancuso easily beat the field of 42 women, finishing in 1:39.75, more than two seconds ahead of everyone else.