Skiing: Erika overcomes all the odds

By Suzanne McFadden

Schoolgirl skier Erika McLeod overcame a painful leg fracture to beat a former World Cup star for the New Zealand championship title yesterday.

McLeod, 17, stole the national ski racing crown off defending champion Claudia Riegler on the challenging slopes of Mt Hutt.

The teenager had only been back on her skis for a week, after suffering a stress fracture in her left leg. The injury had kept her off the snow for five weeks.

Riegler, a star of the slopes when she finished second in the World Cup two years ago, was the top Kiwi in the giant slalom on the first day of competition on Wednesday.

But when she failed to finish her first run in yesterday's slalom - her specialty event - it was up to McLeod to ski safely and surely to the finish-line and clinch the overall title.

McLeod ended up fifth, behind top Australians and Americans, but it was good enough to be the best New Zealander - and good enough for the biggest victory in her young career.

"The weather wasn't good, but I used my head," said McLeod, a seventh former at St Cuthberts School in Auckland.

"I wasn't too happy with the way I had skied the day before, but it was all I could expect after missing five weeks with an injury."

McLeod doesn't know how she got the stress fracture, but she's sure it came from skiing.

"I'd felt a pain in my leg, and didn't worry about it. I kept skiing until it got to the point 10 days later when I couldn't ski anymore," she said. "I stuck to swimming and did some upper body work till a week ago."

McLeod won the national title two years ago, when Riegler was ill and did not compete, but was runner-up to Riegler last year.

"In a way I wish I had beaten Claudia in the giant slalom on the first day, so I felt that I had beaten her fair and square," McLeod said.

Riegler, 23, came back from her other home in Austria in July - keen to retain her New Zealand champion's crown and revitalise a career which has been rumbled by illness and injury in the past two years. She had a fifth placing in a World Cup event in Germany in January, and has been working with former Austrian men's coach Patrick Riml.

"Getting a New Zealand title is pretty cool. It's nothing compared to a World Cup race, but it's still pretty important just to show you're the best in the country again," she said before yesterday's slalom.

McLeod and Riegler will meet again today in the Milo Cup at Mt Hutt. Then McLeod heads home to Helensville to get ready for the next school term and her bursary examinations.

Whakapapa skier Todd Haywood wrapped up both the giant slalom and slalom to finish as the national men's champion.