Reichelt, Paris share downhill victory in Bormio thriller

BORMIO, Italy: Hannes Reichelt of Austria and Dominik Paris of Italy shared a downhill victory in one of the closest races in skiing history yesterday, with the top four finishers separated by a mere two hundredths of a second.
Paris took the early lead by clocking 1 minute, 58.62 seconds for his first career win and Reichelt then matched him to give Austria its first speed win of the season.
Overall World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway finished third, 0.01 seconds behind — the smallest possible margin. Klaus Kroell of Austria was fourth, missing out on a podium finish despite being just 0.02 behind the winners.
In the super-G at the 1999 world championships in Vail, Colorado, Lasse Kjus and Hermann Maier shared victory, with Hans Knauss 0.01 behind in third. However, the fourth-place finisher in that race, Stephan Eberharter, was 0.22 back.
Among the women, there was a three-way victory in a giant slalom in Soelden, Austria in 2002 between Nicole Hosp, Tina Maze and Andrine Flemmen.
For a while, it looked like the race might be remembered as an Italian sweep, with Paris, Werner Hell and Christof Innerhofer sitting 1-2-3 through 13 starters. With Italian great Alberto Tomba on hand, the local fans were going wild.
Reichelt was then faster than Paris at each checkpoint, but he lost time on the bottom section and crossed dead even — prompting the fans to cheer some more.
Svindal then made a slight error near the end of his run — nearly going down on one hip — but battled to regain his balance and was pleased with his result after sitting out training Friday with a sore throat.
With 674 points, Svindal extended his overall lead ahead of Marcel Hirscher of Austria (560) and Ted Ligety of the United States — both technical specialists who did not race.
Svindal also still leads the downhill standings.
Kroell was the last of the favorites to ski and was 0.20 faster than the leaders at the final checkpoint. But when he crossed the line and saw the results board, he buried his face in his hands.
“Fourth is not bad, but it’s not fair to lose by 0.02,” Kroell said. “I don’t have any joy at all. I’m the (fool) of the day. ... My finish was very bad.” It was the first downhill win of Reichelt’s career. He has also won four super-G’s and one giant slalom, and took silver in super-G at the last world championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
Paris’ only previous podium result was a second in a downhill in Chamonix, France, two seasons ago.
On a splendid day of sunshine, the top American finisher was Travis Ganong in seventh for his best career result.
Always known as one of the most physically demanding course on the circuit, several racers fell as they battled exhaustion on the lower section.
Andrej Sporn of Slovenia was the first to go down, within sight of the finish. He eventually got up and skied down under his own power. Next was Joachim Puchner of Austria, who crashed into the nets but also appeared to escape serious injury.
In all, 11 racers failed to finish.
The next stop on the circuit is a special city event in Munich on New Year’s Day for select athletes. Speed specialists have a break until the classic races in Wengen, Switzerland, and Kitzbuehel, Austria, in mid-January.