By Ski Racing News Service

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany — Elisabeth Goergl makes sweet high speed turns as well as anyone, which she displayed in taking the World super G Championship at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany this morning in opening the title meet before an enthusiastic crowd of spectators and a bright sunny day.

It is her first championship after gaining bronze medals at the 2009 title meet in combined and at last season’s Olympics in downhill and GS. It is also her first win of the season, and it was a good time to pull that one out of the bag.

Picking up the silver with a run that seemed to get better as it progressed was the amazing Julia Mancuso, tacking one more batch of sand into cementing her reputation as a big event skier. The American title ace (three Olympic medals and now four World Championship medallions) displayed magnificent control over a difficult, dappled and icy Kandahar course to come with five hundredths of her first championship.

Even though it is bronze and not gold, expect a huge celebration throughout Garmisch with the epicenter on Wildenauer Strabe, the home base of Germany’s great Maria Riesch. She skied immediately after Goergl and, like Mancuso, just missed the top prize finishing 0.21 of a second off the Austrian’s time.

Young skiers made strong bids but could not manage the prize winning slots. Swiss Lara Gut finished fourth, Austrian Anna Fenninger fifth and Italian World Jr. Champ Elena Curtoni sixth.

In seventh was defending all-world queen Lindsey Vonn, looking, perhaps, just a touch tentative after having railed on organizers the day before the event for offering a course too dangerous for female skiers. Though the course seemed ideally suited for her strength and tactical skill, Vonn did not attack as we have grown accustomed to seeing.

There were DNF’s and it was a tough course, but the lion’s share of those DNF’s came from skiers starting outside the first seed.

Mancuso said her run definitely improved as she moved down course. “I didn’t start off the greatest, but as I started to pick up momentum down the course I started to get a good feeling and started to ski better and better.”

She said she thought she’d be lucky to get the bronze, so was more than pleased with silver. “Of course I wanted to do my best and get a meal, so I’m stoked.”

“I’m still chasing the win,” she said. “I’ll just remember that I need those five hundredths. You have to have everything here.”