Funkerstation » head dangerously close to getting jammed

SOELDEN, Austria -- Lara Gut got the defense of her overall World Cup title off to a shining start Saturday.The first womens champion from Switzerland in more than two decades, Gut dominated the season-opening giant slalom on a sun-soaked Rettenbach glacier.On an icy slope under crisp, blue skies, Gut held on to her first-run lead to clinch a comfortable win as she led Mikaela Shiffrin by 1.44 seconds for her 19th career victory. The American also finished second in Soelden last year after winning the race in 2014.Its a good start, Gut said. Soelden is always a special race. Its very steep. Its very difficult. You have to charge and not think too much. I had to fight against my head, as I had been thinking too much in the past 24 hours. I dont know why. Usually I just ski and enjoy what I am doing. I am the one who laughs.Gut said she thanked Austrias Marcel Hirscher, the mens overall champion, for giving her some useful advice.Marcel told me yesterday, You just have to ski. I knew I could be fast, but you still have to deliver, she said. Today wasnt my easiest day. It was a fight against myself. What I am going to take with me from today is that I was stronger than my head, I was stronger than that what I was thinking.Gut held a 1.42-second lead over Shiffrin after the first leg and was put under pressure by the Americans near-flawless second run. The Swiss champion lost two-tenths early in her run, but her victory never came under threat.The second run was a battle, Gut said.Shiffrin, who lost here to Italys Federica Brignone in 2015, said she could live with a runner-up finish for a second straight year.Its a big relief. I can be happy with it, but I also know I can be better, Shiffrin said. I really wanted to start off the season strong. Its always better to win, but Lara was very strong, just like Federica last year. Today she raised the level. I am not super far off, but I am still looking for that second GS win.Shiffrin praised her Swiss rival for holding herself together.She is like the queen of hammering the course and risking and really, really racing, Shiffrin said. I am getting close to it, but I have a lot of respect for her to be able to come through the first race of the season.Marta Bassino of Italy, the only other skier to finish within two seconds of Gut, earned her first top-three result. It was the 100th podium in giant slalom by an Italian woman. Only Austria, Switzerland and France have more top-three results.I just tried to ski like in training, Bassino said through an interpreter. This is an amazing result. It means a lot to me.Former world champion Tessa Worley of France placed sixth, 2.88 off the lead, while Eva-Maria Brem of Austria, who took the giant slalom title last season, was 5.14 seconds behind in 26th after two disappointing runs.Petra Vlhova of Slovakia started 55th but posted the fastest second-run time to finish eighth.Several top contenders were sitting out the race. American standout Lindsey Vonn said she will focus more on the downhill and super-G this season. Two-time former overall champion Anna Veith of Austria and 2010 Olympic GS champion Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany were recovering from injuries.Organizers said the race was attended by 14,000 spectators, including the 77-year-old Heinrich Messner. The Austrian won the first World Cup race in 1967 -- a slalom in Berchtesgaden, Germany. He was invited to Soelden as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the World Cup.A mens giant slalom on the same course is scheduled for Sunday.Orlando Pace Womens Jersey . 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Nolan Cromwell Jersey . -- Ryan Getzlaf grabbed the three pucks wrapped in tape and held them up to his chest in the Anaheim Ducks dressing room for a celebration nine seasons in the making.Dipa Karmakar wrote a new chapter in Indian gymnastics, turning in her - and Indias - best performance at an international event, by finishing fourth in the vault in the individual apparatus final at the Rio Olympics.Commonwealth Games bronze medallist in 2014 and fifth-placed in the world championships last year, Dipa finished behind the three medal winners: Olympics all-round individual champion Simone Biles of the USA (15.966), Maria Paseka of Russia (15.253), and Giulia Steinbruger of Switzerland (15.216).Dipa who was the eighth and last gymnast to come through qualifying into the vault final, produced an assured and composed performance in her two signature vaults, scoring 15.066, her best scores of the competition so far.?I will definitely go for a medal in 2020. I am very happy with my first Olympics, a relaxed and smiling Dipa said after the event. The other three were better than me. I enjoyed myself and did both my vaults as well as I could.Gymansts perform two vaults in the final, to display their expertise over different approaches and landings, and Dipa is best known around the world for her controlled execution of the controversial and often criticised Produnova vault. Her choice is to usually go for the Produnova (front handspring double somersault) first, with its highest D-(for difficulty) score of 7 in the womens vault and follow it up with the Zamolodchikova (a stretched double twist from the Tsukahara family of vaults) with a D-score of 6.As the sixth of eight gymnasts who competed in the Olympic final on Sunday, Dipa knew the score she had to beat in order to win a medal, and came very close.Swiss Guilia Steinbrugers 15.216 was the target and in order to do so, Dipa was to switch the sequence of her vaults. She first produced a clean Tsukahara 720, with a tiny side step at the landing, which earned her a total of 14.866 on her first vault, an improvement on the 14.600 she had scored in the qualifying competition.The Produnova was her final vault in Rio and again, she was to do better with it than she had in the qualifiers. Last week, a two-step stumble onn landing had left Dipa visibly annoyed, as she won an execution score of 8.dddddddddddd100 in the qualifiers. On Sunday, Dipa landed feet first in a low squat. She touched the mat with her body, but stayed in position on landing and earned herself 8.266 for execution, with a total of 15.266. It left her with a total score of 15.066, just 0.15 points behind Steinbruger.After the event, Dipas performance drew praise from Biles herself: The vault she does is amazing and I will never try those vaults. Its crazy but its amazing how she pulled it off. She has improved a lot. I remember I was impressed the first time I saw her. Her progress over the years is absolutely amazing.Unlike in the qualifiers, Dipa was not the only gymnast to successfully execute the Produnova in the final; Uzbekistans Oksana Chusovitina, 41 and in her seventh Olympics, is one of the four women who has successfully completed the Produnova, after Elena Produnovas perfect execution in 1999. Chusovitina was to attempt it as her first vault on Sunday and her landing was to show the vaults latent danger. After her double somersault, Chusovitina toppled forward on hitting the ground, at one point her head dangerously close to getting jammed against the landing mat. As a trained gymnast, she was able to rolled out of trouble and scored 14.933 for her effort (7 for difficulty and 7.933 for execution). She was to finish seventh over all with a total score of 14.833.To anyone who had somehow become accustomed to watching Dipa pull off her signature vault regularly in international competitions, Chusovitinas stumble was a reminder of the narrow margin between athletic success and a grievous accident in the Produnova.At the end of what was a rather miserable Sunday for the Indias Olympic contingent in Rio, Dipas performance broke through the gloom. At this Olympics, her vaulting was confident and fearless and proved to the world that at the highest level of her sport, Dipa Karmakar belongs. ' ' '