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Paerson skis to win in super-combined at home in Sweden

Anja Paerson of Sweden waves a flag during the awards ceremony after her win in the women's super-combined at the Alpine Skiing World Championships in Are, Sweden, on Friday. PHOTO: EPA

It was so cold on Friday at the Alpine skiing world championships that many of the public toilets froze. As a result, Swedish fans danced from foot to foot to stay warm as they waited for another victory from countrywoman Anja Paerson.

Paerson won in the super-combined event in 1:57.69 after a downhill run of 1:11.00 and a slalom of 46.69, adding another gold medal after a victory in the super-G on Tuesday. Olympic champion Julia Mancuso of the US finished second, 0.81 seconds behind.

Mancuso collected her third career world championship medal. She won a bronze in the super-G and the giant slalom at the last championships two years ago in Bormio, Italy.

Even without the frigid temperatures, which forced her to wear a mask in the downhill portion of the race, Mancuso said the daylong event was about perseverance.

"To me, that's what the combined is -- just fighting all day," she said. "I was pretty far behind Anja and I knew it was going to be tough to get the gold."

Mancuso, a 22-year-old Californian, had the second-fastest time in the downhill in the afternoon and the fifth-fastest in the slalom, which was held under floodlights as the sun set.

The temperatures forced Mancuso to switch ski boots just before the second run. She said the plastic had become so stiff that it was affecting her technique during a warm-up run.

"I couldn't get them off at first, they were so stiff," said Mancuso, who switched to more flexible boots than she normally uses for giant slalom. "Here it's so cold, it doesn't really matter what you ski on. No matter what, your boots are going to be stiff."

It was another episode in the strange saga of Mancuso's boots.

Mancuso's results last year on the World Cup circuit suffered after she left her boots at a hotel in Canada. For the next month, the boots, in the care of shipping companies and couriers, would arrive to her competition sites too late.

Once her boots caught up with her, she began finishing on the World Cup podium. Last February, she won the Olympic giant slalom in Turin, Italy.

Late last month, Mancuso's boot sponsor started distributing posters showing her wearing its boots and little else, making her the most recent to pose for the infamous "Lange Girl" campaign. The posters have hung in the back rooms of ski shops since 1968.
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