. world ski news : Carlo Janka: "Only a small chance to win in Kitzbuhel!" - 22 January 2010 - 10:30
After his impressive win in Wengen, Carlo Janka reflected in his diary on his victory and started to make plans for the events in Kitzbühel.
"It was great to skip the slalom at Wengen and get an extra day of rest at home, I really appreciated the time to relax and take it easy for a short moment. I really needed it after the tough days at Adelboden and Wengen."
"I was pretty tired after Wengen, in my legs but also in my head. After racing the challenging giant slalom at Adelboden and the training and races at Wengen, my muscles were very sore. You need a lot of energy to tame that four+-kilometer-long course."
"My mind was exhausted with all the excitement, the tension, all those meetings and business requirements, the high expectations related to events organized in your own country. I really enjoyed being home in Obersaxenn Sunday to quietly watch the slalom on TV. I declined the invitation from the Swiss TV to travel to Zurich to attend a sports show ‘Sportpanorama' in the evening. I was there not so long ago and I just needed that break at home. Then they decided to send a crew to my place and film me in the local café among my friends and fans which was ok for me."
"On Monday I didn't accept any invitation or request and just laid back - only taking some time to write these lines. After all that craziness in Wengen I was happy just being by myself for once. I was not afraid of the emptiness - it's not a problem for me to do nothing for a while during the season. In summer it's quite different - I need more excitement and action."
"Soon it's time to get ready for Kitzbühel. In Wengen, I already managed to clinch a great Classic. I'm very proud of this - not so many Swiss racers have been able to achieve that. After my hat trick at Beaver Creek, many people, especially my fans and the media, expect a lot from me again - including another triumph in Kitzbühel."
"I can already say now - I don't really expect to excel in Kitz this year. On one side, there are still some thoughts in my mind about Daniel Albrecht's accident last year and on the other, it's also a matter of how many risks I'm ready to take in Austria this time. The possibility of suffering a bad crash in Kitzbühel and getting injured is just that much higher there than in any other place."
"If I am ready to charge and fully go for it, I might have a chance to win that race. Yet if I were to sustain a bad injury now I would lose any chance to do well at the upcoming Olympics and fight for a good position in the overall World Cup standings. These two main goals are just much more important to me than a single competition. So I plan to have a smoother run on the Streif this year to avoid any risk of crashing."
"It's not a new tactic for me. I have already been using it for a while. It was the case in Bormio a year ago when I fell in training. On race day, I didn't try to test my limits and went for a safer run to avoid another fall. One must not forget that you may lose much more than just a race with a bad spill in a downhill - you may be obliged to rest for a longer time and even endanger the rest of your career."
"It's also interesting to see how the flow of SMS I have been receiving recently has changed. In past seasons, I received tons of them on my phone after a promising result - but after my 2nd place finish in the super combined at Wengen I only got five of them in total! It proves that people are expecting much more from me now that in the past. It doesn't really affect me but it's strange. I must say I was much happier with my first podium finish in Lake Louise two years ago than with my eleventh top-3 result from last Friday at Wengen."
"If I follow my tactic in Kitzbühel, I guess I'll not receive a lot of SMSs after my downhill there."
Carlo Janka (source: Skionline.ch)
FISalpine.com
Friday 22 January 2010