Back in Are, Anja Paerson eyes return to World Cup podium after early-season struggles

Back in Are, Paerson eyes return to WCup podium

ARE, Sweden — A return to Are may be just what Anja Paerson needs to find her way back onto the World Cup podium.

The Olympic slalom champion is still searching for her first top-three finish this season after seven races, but is skiing on one of her favorite slopes this weekend as the circuit returns to her native Sweden.

Paerson broke out of a season-long slump to in 2007 to take three world championship titles in Are, and won two World Cup races in 2006. No wonder she’s excited about coming back.

“I feel a bit extra charged up going into this weekend,” said Paerson, whose last World Cup podium was a third-place finish in a downhill in Tarvisio, Italy, in February. “I think I found something this week in training, with my technique. … I’ve found the joy and comfort that you need to perform.”

There is one red flag, however.

This weekend’s races are a giant slalom on Saturday and a slalom on Sunday, whereas Paerson has traditionally done better in the speed events on the Are slopes. At the 2007 worlds, she won the downhill, super-G and super-combined, but skied out in the GS and took bronze in the slalom.

So she plans to have a selective memory at the start of Saturday’s race.

“My memories from the worlds in the giant slalom are about skiing out,” she said. “But the feeling coming back here is definitely good.”

The GS has lately been a general problem for Paerson, who started out as a technical specialist but gradually become more efficient in the speed events. She won back-to-back world titles in the GS in 2003 and ‘05, but her last World Cup podium in the event dates back to April 2006. This season she was sixth in the World Cup opener in Soelden, Austria, and then 22nd in Aspen, Colorado, last month.

After a week of speed events in Lake Louise, Alberta, she’s been doing technical training at a nearby Swedish resort this week. Now she hopes the adjustments she’s made will carry over to the competitive races.

“I’ve had two good sessions of GS and two good sessions of slalom,” she said. “That gives you confidence.”

And Paerson may need a confidence boost soon, as she looks ahead to the Vancouver Olympics in February.

After winning two straight overall World Cup titles in 2004-05 and the slalom gold in Turin, Paerson was long seen as the biggest name in women’s skiing — a title she has now relinquished to Lindsey Vonn.

The American won the last two overall World Cup globes and dominated the speed events in Lake Louise last weekend with two straight downhill wins followed by a second-place finish in the super-G.

Paerson finished fourth in one of the downhills — her best result of the season — but knows she is playing catch-up to Vonn going into Vancouver.

“If I had been on the podium last weekend, I could’ve said I was exactly where I want to be at this point in the season,” Paerson said. “But as it is now, we know it’s a bit of an uphill battle.”