Latest Alpine skiing Stories

By Clare Fallon SAN SICARIO, Italy (Reuters) - American Lindsey Kildow is recovering well from her training crash and is ready to race in Friday's Olympic Alpine skiing combined event, her friend and former racer Picabo Street said on Thursday. "I spoke to her and she is full of energy and she is going to go in the combined, and in the super-G if her back is not too sore," Street told Reuters. Street, who was Olympic super-G champion in 1998, spent time with Kildow at the Turin...

By Clare FallonSESTRIERE, Italy -- Bode Miller is not bothered about Olympic medals and could walk away from the sport of ski racing at any time without a single regret, the American says in an interview."It is other people who want me to win medals," Miller said in an interview with Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper on Thursday."The silver medals I won in Salt Lake City didn't give me anything. Last year I set myself the goal of winning the World Cup and lining up a long...

By Sophie Hardach SAN SICARIO, Italy (Reuters) - Austrian Alpine skier Nicole Hosp is banking on a pig to bring her luck during the Winter Olympics and she is looking forward to eating it after the season. Hosp's sister, Sonja, gave her the pig late last year as a lucky charm, and the animal is leading a peaceful existence in a sty near her village of Bichlbach. Not for long. Asked whether she will turn the pig into roast pork after the Olympics, Hosp said: "No, only once the season is...

By Ossian Shine TURIN (Reuters) - Sobbing in triumph, Austrian skier Michaela Dorfmeister knelt to kiss the Alpine snow on Wednesday as her Olympic dream came true, while in the ice hockey the Italian hosts bit the ice against the might of Canada. Dorfmeister let her emotion loose and dissolved into tears after a long-awaited victory in the women's downhill. Just a month before retirement, the 32-year-old swept all aside to win the one prize that had long eluded her at the Winter...

By Ossian Shine TURIN (Reuters) - Kissing the snow and weeping with joy, Michaela Dorfmeister soaked up her Olympic glory on Wednesday after a long-awaited victory in the women's downhill. Just a month before retirement, the 32-year-old swept all aside to win the one prize that had long eluded her at the Winter Games. "This was my last dream," she said. "Now I will be able to retire with a perfect feeling and I can't wait to start a new life." As Dorfmeister reveled in her glory, the...

SAN SICARIO, Italy (Reuters) - France's Carole Montillet, the 2002 downhill Olympic champion, surrendered her throne to Austria's Michaela Dorfmeister on Wednesday but vowed to fight back in Sunday's super-G. Hardly recognizable with her face bruised and swollen after a bad crash in Monday's practice, the Frenchwoman was never in contention and finished an embarrassing 28th, 4.54 seconds behind Dorfmeister. There had been doubts until the last minute about her participation as she was...

By Sophie Hardach SAN SICARIO, Italy (Reuters) - Croatian downhill favorite Janica Kostelic will not start in Wednesday's Olympic downhill race due to a higher than normal pulse rate, her spokesman said. "She had a higher pulse and after her thyroid operation two years ago we want to be careful and let her recover," he told Reuters. "She will start in all the other disciplines but not in today's downhill." The Croatian, a triple Olympic champion from 2002, was tipped as one of the...

By Sophie Hardach SAN SICARIO (Reuters) - Young Olympic hopefuls want to make Alpine skiing sexier to catch up with snowboarding and freestyle skiing, disciplines they say are luring newcomers away from traditional sports. "I think young people are more interested in freestyle, they find skiing a bit stuffy," German downhill skier Petra Haltmayr told Reuters after an Olympic training session on Tuesday. "Skiing could do with a bit of jazz. I saw the halfpipe (competition) and it was...

By Alan Baldwin SESTRIERE, Italy (Reuters) - Alpine skiing showman Bode Miller failed to medal for the second race in a row at the Winter Olympics on Tuesday. The outspoken U.S. all-rounder, one of the big draws of the winter circus, was disqualified from the combined event for straddling one of the 56 gates in the first slalom leg. Until then he had been a hot contender for gold, dominating the downhill leg and leading Austrian rival Benjamin Raich by nearly a second on the scoreboard...

By Manuele Lang SAN SICARIO, Italy (Reuters) - Sweden's Anja Paerson says she has matured over the past year and is ready to begin her Olympic challenge on five fronts -- starting with Wednesday's downhill. "This year I'm very calm and focused. I think where I changed the most in my professional life, but also on the personal side, is that I grew up as a person, my personality and the way I think," Paerson told Reuters in an interview. "It gives me a lot of energy to go around the...