Rienda Contreras Wins Giant Slalom

The first two days of the only women’s World Cup ski stop in the United States this year has produced tip-top weather but few results for an American team with history-making hopes at the upcoming Turin Olympic Games.

The top six finishers in two events include three Austrians and one Swiss, Swede and Spaniard.

Spain’s Jose Maria Rienda Contreras won Saturday’s giant slalom event in the Aspen Winternational with a two-run time of 1 minute 57.17 seconds.

It was the third World Cup win for the 30-year-old, who joined the tour in 1997.

Rienda Contreras, skiing last in the second run after posting the top time in the morning, rode a second-run time of 58.52 to hold off Swedish star Anja Paerson, who finished second at 1:57:51.

Kathrin Zettel of Austria was third in 1:57.53.

Americans were nowhere near the top.

Julia Mancuso finished 12th, the top U.S. finish, and Kristina Koznick ended up 24th.

Mancuso won a bronze medal in giant slalom at last year’s world championships in Bormio, Italy, but described her Saturday performance as “a little bit all over the place.”

Part of Mancuso’s problem was breaking in a new pair of boots after leaving her old pair in Canada. Mancuso said the new boots were too “aggressive” and she expects her performances to get better.

“It’s taking me a little time to get warmed up and ready to go,” said Mancuso, who finished 31st in Friday’s super-giant slalom, an event in which she also won bronze at last year’s world championships.

Lindsey Kildow, the other half of the American team’s one-two punch, failed to qualify for Saturday’s second giant slalom run after she lost control on a turn in her morning run and coasted in with a pedestrian time of 1:04.09.

“I still have to learn better tactics in GS,” Kildow said. “I want to do well, and it’s something I have to work on.”

Kildow finished seventh in Friday’s super-G and, last week, scored a World Cup win in downhill at Lake Louise.

The American women’s team, touted as the deepest ever to enter an Olympic season, entered eight racers in Saturday’s GS, but only two advanced to the afternoon run -- only the top 30 morning times qualify.

The Americans raced without two of their better GS racers, Sarah Schleper and Resi Stiegler, who are nursing injuries.

The best U.S. result this weekend has been Kirsten Clark’s fifth-place finish in Friday’s super-G.

Koznick, an American who races independent of the U.S. ski team, may be the best hope in today’s slalom, after which the World Cup tour moves on to Val d’Isere, France.

In terms of Olympic buzz, Paerson finally skied to form after finishing no better than 31st last week in three Lake Louise events.

The 24-year-old Paerson is the two-time defending World Cup overall champion.

She earned a silver medal in giant slalom and a bronze in slalom at the 2002 Salt Lake Games.

Paerson say she needs only one more medal in the set to complete her collection.

“A gold medal in the Olympics,” she said, “that’s the only thing I’m kind of missing.”