American skier sets World Cup mark for wins
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American Hannah Kearney won her 15th consecutive World Cup moguls event Sunday, breaking downhill great Ingemar Stenmark's all-discipline record for consecutive Federation of International Skiing World Cup victories.
"It's insane. I had no idea about the record," Kearney said. "It's great to have this record as a freestyle skier. Alpine has a lot more races, thus more opportunities to start a streak.
"That is the biggest honor that you can possibly receive considering all the amazing athletes that have crossed through the FIS World Cup circuit throughout the years."
Kearney, from Norwich, Vt., won at Beida Lake, China, after stumbling on top and barely making the four-skier super finals.
"I had to fight today," Kearney said. "The course wasn't really suited for my type of skiing [small bumps and shallow pitch], so I worked on it all week. I qualified first for finals, but in the first round of finals made a mistake on the second mogul. Luckily, with all my competitive experience, I knew that it was never over till it's over. I pulled it together and skied a really clean run from there down.
"I made the super finals in fourth place and had to really ski for my life. I skied aggressively and went really big off the bottom air and was rewarded with the victory."
Stenmark won 14 consecutive giant slaloms in 1978-80. Kearney's streak began in Lake Placid, N.Y., on Jan. 22, 2011.
"She usually skis best when she has a challenge or task to improve on," U.S. moguls coach Garth Hager said. "It makes her hungry to perform. The result of that was a really clean run in the round of four."
• Women's giant slalom: Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom in the Andorran Pyrenees while overall leader Lindsey Vonn of the United States finished eighth. Worley led after the opening run and withstood a strong challenge by Slovenia's Tina Maze to win in 2 minutes, 1.80 seconds for her seventh career victory. Maze was 0.16 seconds behind and chipped into Vonn's commanding point total with her seventh top-three finish of the season. Vonn, still on course for her fourth overall title, was 1.36 seconds behind. Even though she was denied a big points haul, the American still holds a 410-point cushion over Maze and is confident about her chances of reclaiming the title.
First Published February 13, 2012 12:00 am
