Olympic ski-cross gold medalist Ashleigh McIvor thought she might take things a little easier this season now that all the pressure of dealing with the five-ring circus and its leadup is over.
The only problem? The willowy blonde from Whistler forgot about her competitive juices.
A day after a laissez-faire attitude cost her a shot at the podium and left her in seventh-place in the World Cup season-opener at San Candido, Italy, McIvor roared back on the same course to grab a silver medal behind Fanny Smith of Switzerland in a second race on Sunday.
'I was kind of planning to take it easy, not be so over-the-top focused and not have the world revolve around my ski cross competition,' McIvor said in a conference call. 'But now that I'm here racing, I guess that drive has just come right back and I'm excited to get out there and get the results.'
She said that without the tension of Olympic qualifying, there were more smiles this weekend and everyone was trying to be more 'fun-focused.' But if she thought the intensity level might drop a bit, she was mistaken.
'As soon as I got here and got into race mode, it was like 'Oh, it's right back.''
McIvor, 27, was the second-fastest qualifier for both days of heat racing, but was upset in Saturday's semifinal. While she says there are girls on the circuit who fear her ' 'they see that they're in the same bracket as me and they go 'Uh, oh,I don't know if I can beat her'' ' that didn't happen in that four-skier heat as the 11th- and 15th-seeded racers went 1-2 to advance to the final.
'I learned a hard lesson. I was passed and then I almost caught the girl in second, but I didn't reach out at the finish line. She got it by a finger and I went to the small final.'
McIvor, fastest qualifier Smith and multi-time World Cup champion Ophelie David of France all surprisingly found themselves in that consolation heat battling for places five through eight.
'There's a few of us girls who people just expect to see in the final,' said McIvor. 'When we were at the start for the small final, we were going 'this is so weird. We should be in the final.''
McIvor didn't intimidate either Smith or David, wound up seventh overall and was determined to rebound Sunday.
She was first in both her quarterfinal and semifinal. But in the final,she found herself behind Sweden's Anna Holmlund, who had won Saturday's final ahead of Kelsey Serwa of Kelowna, and Smith heading into the last long sweeping turn.
Smith leaned into Holmlund on that turn and suddenly it was mayhem.
'Anna pushed Fanny as hard as she could, but practically launched herself off the course,' said McIvor. 'It kind of backfired on her. I carried my speed even though I couldn't see with all the snow flying up. I pulled out to pass [Smith] off the last jump and didn't quite catch her.'
'Fanny deserved the win today. She skied really well. It was fun skiing behind someone who was really dialed in.'
Marrielle Thompson of Whistler was eighth on Sunday, with Serwa 11th, Danielle Poleschuk of Calgary 12th and Julia Murray of Whistler 14th.
On the men's side, Chris Del Bosco, the Colorado native who has dual citizenship, was a Canadian-best fifth as Scott Kneller of Australia won her first World Cup. Nick Zoricic of Toronto was eighth, Dave Duncan of Golden 12th and Davey Barr of Whistler 19th.
McIvor said it was pretty easy to get pumped for the weekend racing, given that the course was a '500 per cent improvement' over last season. The first ever race at San Candido was on a course that more resembled an alpine Super G track with a few bumps thrown in.
But FIS now is standardizing course building techniques and using one designer.
'It was awesome,' said McIvor of the course. 'It was really flowy, with tons of features ' little step downs, doubles and gaps.
'Every heat was action-packed. It was really intense, good solid passes. That's the way ski cross should be, lots of passing, some jostling here and there.'
gkingston@vancouversun.com
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