Weirather wins Lake Louise super-G as Vonn fails to finish

AFP

Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein won the women's World Cup super-G on Sunday for her first Lake Louise victory.

Weirather finished in 1 minute, 18.52 seconds in sunny conditions. She won after finishing second five times in downhill and super-G races at the Canadian resort in Alberta.

"Well, it really means a lot to me because I was here and on the podium so many times," Weirather said. "I think seven times and now the first win. I was so close a couple of times."

Weirather also was second on Friday in the season-opening downhill.

Switzerland's Lara Gut, the winner last year ahead of Weirather, was second in 1:18.63. Austria's Nicole Schmidhofer followed in 1:18.79.

After crashing on Friday, American star Lindsey Vonn fell again on Sunday but was able to ski to the bottom.

"My inside ski, my boot hit the snow and just knocked my ski out," Vonn said. "It's been a pretty unlucky weekend in that regard, but I was charging and had more confidence than I did yesterday.

"I just feel a little bit deflated overall. I think if I would have finished Friday it would have been a whole other ball game. But that's ski racing. The lucky thing is I'm relatively healthy and my main focus this season has always been the Olympics."

Fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin was fifth after getting her first downhill victory on Saturday.

"I'm really excited because I think I have the right mindset for the speed races," Shiffrin said.

The women head to St Moritz, Switzerland, next week for a pair of super-G races and a combined event.

Reuters

At Beaver Creek, Colorado, Austria's Marcel Hirscher, who broke his ankle in August, won the men's World Cup giant slalom on Sunday, AFP reported.

Hirscher, the six-time defending overall World Cup champion, finished with a combined time of 2 minutes, 37.30 seconds with Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen second in 2:38.18 and German Stefan Luitz third.

Hirscher earned his 46th World Cup win and his first since he broke his ankle in training.

"I did not expect to win here. I knew that I was skiing well, but I still thought I was far from the best times," said the four-time world champion who in February will try to fill the only void on his resume when he goes for gold at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

With the Games on the horizon, Hirscher has pushed himself to return to form.

"It was a hard time for sure," he said of his enforced absence. "Luckily I am here.

"The last month was very hard. I just skied, skied, skied as many runs as possible to get the speed, to come closer to my teammates."

Third after the first leg on the Birds of Prey course, 39 hundredths of a second behind Luitz, Hirscher delivered a flawless second run.

"I said to myself let's go for it, let's give it a try, let's see what comes out of it," he said. "It's really unexpected."

Thanks to a few points garnered in a slalom at Levi, and also to the postponement of the scheduled opening giant slalom in Soelden, Hirscher isn't too far out of touch in the overall standings.

He is in 14th place with 114 points, 135 points behind leader Kjetil Jansrud of Norway, who failed to gain any points on Sunday.

The men's World Cup resumes next week in Val d'Isere, France.