Daron Rahlves

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Daron Rahlves Alpine Freestyle
nation United StatesUnited States United States
birthday 12th June 1973 (age 47)
place of birth Walnut Creek , United States
size 175 cm
Weight 84 kg
Career
discipline Alpine skiing ( downhill , super-G , giant slalom )
freestyle ( ski cross )
society Sugar Bowl Ski Team
status End of career (2006 alpine skiing, 2010 ski cross)
End of career 2010
Medal table
Alpine World Ski Championships 1 × gold 1 × silver 1 × bronze
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships
gold St. Anton 2001 Super G
silver Bormio 2005 Departure
bronze Bormio 2005 Giant slalom
FISPlacements in the Alpine Ski World Cup

Debut in the World Cup March 13, 1994
World Cup victories 12
Overall World Cup 4th ( 2005/06 )
Downhill World Cup 2. ( 2002/03 , 2003/04 )
Super G World Cup 2. (2003/04)
Giant Slalom World Cup 11. (2005/06)
 Podium placements 1. 2. 3.
 Departure 9 4th 7th
 Super G 3 2 2
 Giant slalom 0 1 0
 team 0 1 0
FISPlacements in the Freestyle Skiing World Cup

Debut in the World Cup February 2, 2008
Overall World Cup 109th ( 2007/08 )
Ski cross world cup 35th (2007/08)
 Podium placements 1. 2. 3.
 Ski cross 0 1 0
 

Daron Louis Rahlves (born June 12, 1973 in Walnut Creek , California ) is a retired American skier. At first he was active as an alpine ski racer and after the turn of the millennium was one of the world's best athletes in the downhill and super-G disciplines . He won twelve world cup races and three medals at world championships, including the gold in Super-G in 2001. At the end of the 2005/06 season he announced his temporary resignation. After a one-year break, he switched to freestyle skiing in 2008 and was also among the world's best in the ski cross discipline .

biography

Alpine skiing

Rahlves grew up in Truckee, about 15 kilometers from Lake Tahoe . In his youth he was mainly interested in water skiing . He followed the example of his father Dennis, a real estate trader by profession, who had been successful as a water skier in the 1960s. In 1981 the family moved to nearby Alpine Meadows in order to be able to ski even more often. When he was 14 years old, joined Rahlves to the Green Mountain Valley School in Waitsfield ( Vermont ), a secondary private school with a focus on sports. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at the University of Colorado , and later at the University of Nevada at Reno . In 1993 he became world champion in jet skiing .

So far, Rahlves had practiced alpine skiing more as a compensation, so he did not get beyond 33rd place at the Junior World Championships in Maribor in 1992 . But then he decided to focus entirely on skiing. In the 1993/94 and 1994/95 seasons, he won the Super-G rating of the Nor-Am Cup . From 1994 to 1996 he was the American giant slalom champion three times in a row. His debut in the Ski World Cup he had on 13 March 1994, the departure of Whistler , he reached No. 62. Four days later, he drove the Super-G of Vail at No. 20; However, since it was the World Cup final , there were no World Cup points for it. He won such for the first time on February 26, 1995 as the 23rd of the Super-G from Whistler. Two weeks later, on March 10, 1995, in Kvitfjell he advanced to the top of the world with fourth place in the Super-G.

In the following winters, Rahlves was not able to keep himself at the highest level and only sporadically classified himself among the top ten in the World Cup. At the 1998 Winter Olympics , he reached 7th place in the Super-G. However, he did not seem to want to achieve the big breakthrough. This changed suddenly towards the end of the 1999/2000 season when he won two World Cup runs in a row on March 3 and 4, 2000 in Kvitfjell within 24 hours. Unspectacular results at the beginning of the 2000/01 season seemed to indicate a relapse into mediocrity. But after Rahlves finished third on the Streif in Kitzbühel on January 20, 2001 , he suddenly became one of the most popular favorites for the 2001 World Cup . In St. Anton he became world champion in Super-G, ahead of the Austrians Stephan Eberharter and Hermann Maier ; in the downhill it was enough to place 5.

The 2001/02 season did not go as planned. Among the rather mediocre results, only a fourth place in the Super-G on the Streif stood out. The 2002 Winter Olympics ended with a disappointment for Rahlves (8th place in the Super-G as the best result). He finally had to end the season prematurely after a training crash. Rahlves was far more successful in the 2002/03 season: He was able to win two downhill runs, including the one in Kitzbühel, making him the first American Hahnenkamm downhill winner after Wallace Werner in 1959. With five more podium places, he narrowly missed winning the downhill discipline ranking. But he had to accept another disappointment at the 2003 World Championships , 16th place in the giant slalom was the best result.

Also in the 2003/04 season, Rahlves remained at the top of the world. He won two Super-Gs and two downhill runs, plus three more podium places. In both disciplines he was in second place in the corresponding World Cup ranking at the end of winter. After he had shown comparatively inconspicuous performances in the giant slalom, he achieved the breakthrough to the top of the world in this discipline with several top 10 results in the 2004/05 season. At the 2005 World Championships , he won two more medals: First silver in the downhill run behind his compatriot Bode Miller , four days later the bronze medal in the giant slalom (he had surprisingly led after the first round, but then fell back to third place). He closed the winter with a Super G victory.

At the beginning of the 2005/06 season, Rahlves achieved the only podium in a World Cup giant slalom. He also won three other runs, including the Lauberhorn run in Wengen . But even at the 2006 Winter Olympics , his third participation in the Olympics, he was unable to win a medal because he could not cope with the slope in Sestriere . He finished his alpine skiing career on March 26, 2006 with the eighth American championship title.

Ski cross

Rahlves justified his resignation with the fact that besides training, competition and material tests he had hardly any time for his real passion, freeriding . For this reason, he turned down a job as a sports commentator at CBS , nor did he want to work as a coach. Inspired by the freestyle scene, he appeared in a freeride commercial in 2005, which was soon followed by more. Ultimately, he decided to continue doing top-class sport, but now in the freestyle discipline of ski cross .

Right away, Rahlves was able to establish himself at the top of the world. In the winter of 2007/08 he took part in the 48 Straight Jeep Tour in North America and came in third overall. The in Aspen discharged Winter X-Games in 2008 he decided to ski cross competition in itself. On February 2, 2008, the first use in the Freestyle Skiing World Cup followed , where he advanced to the finals in Deer Valley and ultimately took fourth place. At the 2009 Freestyle World Championships in Inawashiro , he finished 9th. Rahlves achieved his first World Cup podium as a ski crosser on January 5th, 2010 in St. Johann in Tirol . At the 2010 Olympic Winter Games , the last race of his career, Rahlves was eliminated in the quarterfinals and finished in 28th place.

Success as an alpine skier

Olympic games

World championships

World Cup ratings

season total Departure Super G Giant slalom
space Points space Points space Points space Points
1994/95 59. 82 - - 18th 82 - -
1995/96 58. 121 - - 18th 79 27. 42
1996/97 47. 160 - - 11. 160 - -
1997/98 57. 130 46. 17th 12. 113 - -
1998/99 53. 114 32. 50 19th 64 - -
1999/00 20th 462 10. 273 10. 183 47. 6th
2000/01 29 255 15th 149 17th 70 38. 36
2001/02 34. 243 19th 113 12. 118 45. 112
2002/03 6th 647 2. 593 24. 45 49. 9
2003/04 5. 1004 2. 627 2. 340 33. 37
2004/05 5. 984 4th 444 3. 362 12. 178
2005/06 4th 903 3. 444 3. 269 11. 190

World Cup victories

Rahlves achieved 28 individual races on the podium in the World Cup, including 12 victories:

date place country discipline
March 3, 2000 Kvitfjell Norway Departure
March 4, 2000 Kvitfjell Norway Departure
December 29, 2002 Bormio Italy Departure
January 25, 2003 Kitzbühel Austria Departure
December 5, 2003 Beaver Creek United States Departure
January 23, 2004 Kitzbühel Austria Super G
March 7, 2004 Kvitfjell Norway Super G
March 10, 2004 Sestriere Italy Departure
March 11, 2005 * Lenzerheide Switzerland Super G
December 2, 2005 Beaver Creek United States Departure
December 29, 2005 Bormio Italy Departure
January 14, 2006 Wengen Switzerland Departure

* at the same time as Bode Miller

There is also 1 podium place in team competitions .

More Achievements

  • 8 US championship titles (Downhill 2001; Super-G 2000, 2004, 2005 and 2006; Giant Slalom 1994, 1995 and 1996)
  • Winning the Super-G classification of the Nor-Am Cup in the 1993/94 and 1994/95 seasons

Success as a ski crosser

source

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rahlves, Daron
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rahlves, Daron Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American skier
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Walnut Creek