In other words, the sequential trend was starting to look like a downhill race.
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Although it's a net-downhill race from start to finish, it includes the famous Heartbreak Hill, a 650-yard incline at the 21st mile that tests runners' fortitude.
The downhill race on Sunday saw competitors plummet 550ft down the 1.75 mile (2.8km) boulder-strewn course before finishing at the bottom gondola station at the Nevis Range.
She held off Slovenia's Tina Maze by just a single point after bad fog forced the abandonment of the season's final downhill race in Lenzerheide in Switzerland on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Italian skier Dominik Paris celebrated his second victory this season after winning the prestigious downhill race at Kitzbuhel in Austria, one of the most feared runs on the men's circuit.
Sixty years before Dartmouth undergrads schussed Mount Moosilauke in what is popularly regarded as the first downhill ski competition in the U.S., and 40 years before the first downhill race in Europe, miners--bored and snowbound in California's High Sierra--had already raced.
True to their originals, skiers race straight downhill without turning, reaching speeds of 45 miles an hour.
The race is all downhill, with some muscles doing overtime as brakes.
Miller, seventh after the downhill section, relegated pre-race favorite Ivica Kostelic of Croatia to the silver medal position after producing a superb slalom run.
"That would be a two-tier race and nobody would want that at an Olympic downhill, " said Cernigoj, adding that with the gusts dying down in the early afternoon the stage looked set for a classic race on Tuesday.
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