VAL GARDENA, Italy: Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal powered to his first win of the season in a close super-G race at the Saslong Classic on Friday.
Last season’s World Cup overall and super-G champion had managed only two third places so far this season after a knee injury but he bombed down the hill in northern Italy in one minute 38.35 seconds to seize victory.
Svindal, who celebrates his 27th birthday on Boxing Day, edged out Carlo Janka of Switzerland with Italy’s Patrick Staudacher thrilling the home crowd by finishing third.
“I’m absolutely delighted, not just because it’s the first win of the season but also because I enjoyed it so much,” Svindal, who missed nearly all the 2008 season through injury, told reporters.
“Last year here I was really slow. Hard work pays off in sport. It’s very fair like that.” Janka took over at the top of the overall World Cup standings from Benjamin Raich, who came in ninth and is now second with
Svindal in the Super-G table
behind fellow Austrian Michael Walchhofer, who finished a disappointing 13th.
Switzerland’s Didier Cuche and last year’s winner Werner Heel were among those to crash out but there appeared to be none of the serious injuries which have so far blighted the World Cup in the lead-up to February’s Vancouver Olympics.
Despite also taking the 2007 overall World Cup crown, Svindal does not have a good record in classics and his victory at the 42nd edition of the Saslong event in German-speaking South Tyrol was an even bigger surprise.
Janka, who stunned skiing by winning the super-combined, downhill and giant slalom at Beaver Creek earlier this month, looked to have victory in the bag until Svindal’s surging
run.
“It’s a big satisfaction to be on the podium after the bad results at Val d’Isere (last week) and a first podium in super-G is great,” said Janka, who will skip Saturday’s downhill to prepare for Sunday’s giant slalom in nearby Alta Badia.
“It was a pretty good run on the upper part of the course but on the lower part I hit a gate with my head and knocked my goggles to one side.”
Vonn captures 25th career win with super-combined victory
In Val D’Isere, France, American Lindsey Vonn took full advantage of an impressive downhill run to bag her 25th World Cup victory in a super-combined event on Friday.
Vonn, who smashed the field in the downhill section, kept her nerve in the slalom run to prevail in a combined time of two minutes 37.55.
She beat German Maria Riesch by 1.16 seconds, with Austria’s Elisabeth Goergl coming home third 1.39 off the pace. “I skied conservatively in the upper part because I did not want to do too much,” Vonn told reporters.
Riesch and Vonn are now tied for first place in the overall World Cup standings on 521 points.
Vonn, who now has three super-combined World Cup wins to her name, had opened a 1.52-second gap in the morning downhill over Riesch.
The German proved too clumsy to put real pressure on Vonn, making a couple of costly mistakes in the upper part of the slalom run.
The temperature had risen from minus 17 to minus 12 degrees Celsius in the afternoon but the visibility was poorer because of snowfalls.
It did not prevent Vonn securing her third win of the season following downhill victories in Lake Louise earlier this month.
The 25-year-old Vonn will have the opportunity to move clear in the overall standings when she starts as the hot favorite in Saturday’s downhill.
“I now hope to do better than in Lake Louise and make it three out of three,” said Vonn, referring to her performance in the Canadian Rockies, when she won two downhills but finished second in the super-G.
“I hope we won’t have that kind of weather because we could have some problems.”
