Girl Scout cookies, and gates, power Stiegler

Associated Press

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

GIRDWOOD, Alaska - Resi Stiegler had a theory about why she had the fastest run of the day while winning the women's giant slalom at the U.S. Alpine Championships.

She got a few nudges along the way.

"Sometimes the gates whip over you and smack you in the back. Mine just happened to smack me in the butt. Maybe that's what made me go a little bit faster," Stiegler said.

Stiegler followed up her victory in the slalom by winning the giant slalom for her third medal in two days.

The bubbly 21-year-old is well- known for her exuberance and high energy and wasn't shy about saying where the gates struck her on the way down the course at Alyeska Resort. Even if the she had a slight edge in the physics of skiing, she doesn't plan on making it a strategy next season.

Or maybe it was the entire box of Girl Scout cookies she said she ate. Whatever it was, Stiegler was the fastest woman down the mountain for the second day in a row.

"It's kind of a really good week for me. I didn't expect it," she said.

Stiegler finished with a time of 2 minutes, 11.90 seconds and beat Caitlin Ciccone (2:12.02) and Julia Mancuso (2:12.14), the Olympic gold medalist in giant slalom last year.

"I think maybe the hill, the snow, the weather - just the end of the season - put a good note on it," she said. "GS is the one I worked the hardest in, so it's really nice to be able to do that."

The giant slalom was the last event for the women at the U.S. championships, which close today at Alyeska Resort with the men's GS.

Stiegler, daughter of three-time Olympic medalist Pepi Stiegler, was coming off her first national title, a victory in the slalom Sunday that also earned her second place in the combined.

Stiegler has been skiing full time on the World Cup circuit for a few years but has been in the shadow U.S. teammates Mancuso and Lindsey Kildow, of Vail, who did not race in the U.S. championships this year because of a knee injury.