Paerson, Ligety soar to gold
Source: Agencies |
January 30, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ANJA Paerson of Sweden won a World Cup super-combined event for her first victory of the season, while Lindsey Vonn of the United States was third to extend her lead in the overall standings.
Paerson timed 2 minutes, 00.54 seconds for the combined super-G and slalom runs on the Corviglia piste in St Moritz, Switzerland.
The 28-year-old Swede celebrated her 41st career World Cup win -- fourth on the all-time list -- with her trademark belly slide in the finish area.
Michaela Kirchgasser of Austria was second, 0.43 behind, and Vonn trailed by 0.92 after being second fastest in the super-G.
Vonn collected 60 World Cup points to build a 116-point lead over Germany's Maria Riesch.
Riesch skied out near the end of her super-G run when she misjudged her line and skied wide left of a gate approaching a tight left-hand turn. She stood beside the course with her head bowed over her skis reflecting on her mistake.
Paerson, who won back-to-back overall titles in 2004 and 2005, moved up to third, trailing two-time defending champion Vonn by 330.
Paerson was eighth after the super-G with 0.82 to make up on the 25-year-old American, but delivered the fastest slalom run. The Olympic slalom champion also won the St Moritz super-combi last season.
The first-run standings were turned on their heads as the speed specialists could not match the technical experts in the afternoon.
Morning leader Andrea Fischbacher of Austria finished 12th, while Julia Mancuso of the US dropped from third to 14th after the slalom.
Kirchgasser was runner-up after being 12th in the first leg, while fellow Austrian Elisabeth Goergl placed fourth after trailing in 23rd-fastest in the super-G.
In Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, American Ted Ligety won the Podkoren course slalom for the third year in a row yesterday to record his fifth career win.
Ligety, who trailed Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal after the morning run, fought back in the afternoon to win in a combined time of 2:22.02.
"I have a lot of confidence here. If there were more courses like this during the year, I would have won more races," said Ligety, who took the World Cup lead in the discipline.
Ligety, who will defend his Olympic super-combined gold medal in Vancouver next month, beat Austria's Marcel Hirscher and up-and-coming Norwegian Kjetil Jansrud, while first-run pacesetter Svindal had to be content with fourth place.
Two of the pre-race favorites, Croat Ivica Kostelic and Swiss Didier Cuche, were involved in spectacular crashes. Cuche injured a thumb but it was not immediately clear whether it was broken.
Austria's Benjamin Raich, another skier to have won three times on the Podkoren piste, retained the overall World Cup lead in spite of a disappointing 11th place.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
