SKIING U.S. ALPINE CHAMPIONSHIPS : Roffe-Steinrotter Wins Giant Slalom Title

Diann Roffe-Steinrotter should have been a cinch to win Sunday’s giant slalom at the Subaru U.S. Alpine Championships.

History was on her side. She was the defending champion and the 1992 Olympic silver medalist in the giant slalom.

So why was everyone poised for disaster?

Because it has been that kind of year, that kind of week too, for the 25-year-old veteran from Potsdam, N.Y.

Finally, things went according to script.

Braving subzero temperatures and winds that whipped up to 45 m.p.h., Roffe-Steinrotter held off Julie Parisien to win the giant slalom national title with a total time of 2:08.04.

Parisien finished second with a time of 2:09.12. Heidi Voelker was third.

Parisien, without winning an event, won the women’s combined championship on the strength of second-place finishes in giant slalom and slalom, a third in super-giant slalom and a seventh in downhill.

Parisien left the championships with $11,250 in prize money.

Roffe-Steinrotter, for once this year, left with a smile.

Before Sunday, her top finish this season was a seventh place in giant slalom at Steamboat Springs in December. On the World Cup circuit, she has posted only two top-15 finishes in giant slalom and one top-15 in super-G. Roffe-Steinrotter wondered why the media has been so easy on her.

“You guys haven’t battered me as much as I would have expected,” she said.

Course conditions were not ripe for the remaking of a career. In fact, there were questions whether the giant slalom would be run, given the fierceness of the winds.

Roffe-Steinrotter laughed it off.

“You let other people stand at the top and complain,” she said. “I grew up in the East!”

Roffe-Steinrotter was first after the morning run. Parisien, skiing 14th in the second run, held the lead after her run of 1:05.14.

It was short-lived. Skiing after Parisien as the top-seeded racer, Roffe-Steinrotter won the giant slalom title with a second run time of 1:04.17 and then tried to explain what took her so long.

This week pretty much summed up her season. She thought she placed third in Friday’s super-G, but Canada’s Lindsey Roberts bumped her into fourth place with an improbable run from the 47th starting position.

Saturday, Roffe-Steinrotter lost a pole on the second run of slalom and fell out of contention.

What else could go wrong?

“There are moments when that passes through your head,” she admitted. “We have them, where we sit there and we go, ‘Um, this isn’t that easy.’ . . . It’s been a strange year, it’s been difficult, losing my pole, stuff like that. That’s fine, it happens, that’s racing, that’s the way it goes. I just have to approach each race with confidence.”

With Roffe-Steinrotter, all things are relative. She has had far worse years, such as 1987, when she did not score a point on the World Cup circuit.

“I mean bottom, bottom times,” she said. “I couldn’t even stand up, I couldn’t even finish a run. I was ecstatic after being in the first 15 again after two years. This was fine.”