A belated congratulations to Seattle’s Jill Kintner, already the best dual slalom racer in the world, who continues to broaden her foray into the Big Dance, downhill racing.
At the U.S. Open last weekend, Jill finished second in the downhill slate behind Tracy Moseley and ahead of Melissa Buhl. What makes this all the more remarkable is that Jill had just taken the Grand Slalom title, beating both Moseley and Buhl.
On her blog Jill makes clear that she would have won the downhill as well had she not taken a detour where she’d crashed in an earlier run.
You have to love her attitude:
After my crash yesterday, I had orders from Bryn (Atkinson) and Lars (Sternberg we assume) not to hit the finish line jump, so I had to ride the go around which was about a second slower. Finished 2nd by 0.4 seconds!!! Doh. Decent run, did the rocks clean, Just a exited the lower woods in an interesting spot, hit the low line by accident and lost a bit of speed. Still learning how to put together full runs, and I know what I gotta do next time, so I am happy to be learning and progressively getting better, which is my goal every race.
It was quite a weekend for Kintner, auguring big things for the rest of the 2010 season.