The women’s World Cup skiers all set for inaugural race on demanding Birds of Prey downhill course

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. (AP) — American ski racer Bella Wright got to the bottom of the Birds of Prey downhill course after a speedy training run and screamed, “Woo-hoo!”

It just slipped out.

“I realized,” Wright explained, “that I finally got to ski a dream course of mine.”

This course could be a dream to some, but it may prove to be a nightmare for others as the women’s World Cup takes on the difficult and demanding Birds of Prey downhill for the first time Saturday. The racers have been getting up to speed with the technical turns, steep parts and fast sections all week in training sessions.

So far, so scary — initially, anyway.

“The first time you look at it, it’s very intimidating,” American ski racer Jacqueline Wiles said of the downhill, which will be followed by a super-G on Sunday. “But once you get on it, you realize it’s completely manageable and not as scary as it looks.”

The men have been running the Birds of Prey downhill on the World Cup circuit for decades. But the women really haven’t raced this track.

Not the full downhill version.

They did step on part of the terrain for a rescheduled super-G in 2011, when Lindsey Vonn — who’s forerunning this weekend in her comeback at age 40 — emerged victorious.

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In advance of hosting the 2015 world championships at Beaver Creek, a second course called Raptor was designed for the women. The women ran a super-G and downhill on the Raptor course in 2013, with Swiss racer Lara Gut-Behrami winning both. She finds the extra-grippy snow at Beaver Creek to her liking — she also took bronze in the downhill at the 2015 world championships.

“It’s not easy to find the right mix between letting go and pushing on the edges,” Gut-Behrami said of the Birds of Prey course. “It’s challenging and it’s really aggressive.”

One thing’s clear — there’s plenty of speed on the Birds of Prey track. Sofia Goggia of Italy posted the top time in the final training session Friday, clocking nearly 79 mph (126.72 kph) in one section. The day before, Kajsa Vickhoff Lie of Norway went more than 80 mph (129.87 kph).

“It’s really fun,” Lie said.

The course that features jumps, bumps and demanding technical sections is about 1.4 miles (2,304 meters) in length with a vertical drop of 2,313 feet (705 meters).

“I like that it’s so busy — busy in a good way. It’s like every turn there’s something,” said Lauren Macuga, who finished runner-up in Friday’s training run, 1.10 seconds behind Goggia. “There’s never any time to relax.”

There have been plenty of frightful spills on the course.

In 2007, Norwegian great Aksel Lund Svindal suffered a laceration to his abdominal area when he lost control on a jump in a training run and landed in the safety netting. A horror story that turned into a feel-good one as Svindal return to the venue and won several times after his crash.

Bode Miller also crashed in a super-G on the course during the 2015 world championships, and needed surgery to fix a torn right hamstring tendon after his ski appeared to deeply slice him.

Of course, there are so success stories, too. A week ago, Swiss racer Justin Murisier won his first World Cup race in the Beaver Creek downhill, with teammate Marco Odermatt taking second.

Gut-Behrami doesn’t plan on asking Murisier or Odermatt for their secrets to success. She prefers to get to know the course on her own accord.

“We have an inspection,” Gut-Behrami said. “It’s our job (to get a natural feel for a course).”

Lie took a different approach. She inspected the course Thursday with fellow Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who has a wealth of Birds of Prey knowledge. Kilde, who’s currently sidelined by injury, won two World Cup downhills and two super-Gs at the venue.

“I’m not going to tell any secrets,” Lie said with a laugh when asked what Kilde revealed. “No, it’s just the key points and what to do and what he thinks about when he was there. His talking about it makes it more easy in my head.

“It’s new for everybody. I really like that. Everybody has the same basics on it and it’s just about skiing.”

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing