First Super-combined win in the season for Benjamin Raich

Manuèle Lang 09.03.2007 16:39 Uhr

Benjamin Raich celebrated a crucial victory in today’s Super-combined event – the last of the season - organized in Kvitfjell, Norway, on the famous “Olympic” course created for the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games.

The defending World Cup Champion confirmed his strong post-World Championships form in crushing the rest of the field, beating his closest rival Silvan Zurbriggen by impressive 1,41 seconds thanks his outstanding performance in the slalom leg in the afternoon.

In the morning, he was a strong 11th in the downhill portion of this interesting competition, 79/100 of a second behind Switzerland’s Didier Cuche but 4/100 ahead of Hermann Maier, a multiple winner at Kvitfjell in past years.

The Austrian increased his lead in the Overall World Cup standings with that fifth season’s victory. He has now an advance of 117 points on his main rival, Norway’s double World Champion Aksel Lund Svindal, 3rd today at 1,56 seconds.

Yet Svindal had the satisfaction to clinch the Super-combined World Cup title with his podium finish. His top-contender, Switzerland’s Marc Berthod, made a big mistake at the beginning of his slalom run and lost much time. He had to be content with not-such-a-brilliant 9th place and moved down to 2nd place in the Super-combined standings.

Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic, runner-up in the slalom leg behind Raich, finished a strong 4th – and successfully defended his 3rd place in the finals standings of that discipline.

Peter Fill from Italy was 5th, Bode Miller, 2nd in the downhill and 30th in the slalom, 13th

It was also a good day for Cuche, who scored his first ever combined points in finishing 16th. The seventeen points he gained with this result helped him to stay within striking distance of the two Overall leaders, Raich and Svindal.

The Swiss, who aims to clinch the downhill globe on Saturday with another strong performance, is now 242 points behind Raich with still four speed events left. He may well become a bigger threat for the Tyrolian than Svindal who seemed to have lost his rhythm in downhill and Super-G this winter on the World Cup tour.

Another podium for Benni
Benjamin, who reached his fourth consecutive podium in four races since Garmisch-Partenkirchen, was extremely pleased by his first Super-combined win this season. “It’s definitely an important win for me, also because I really skied so well in both legs, especially this morning in the downhill part,” he said. “It was certainly my best performance in downhill this winter. I felt afterwards that I had a good chance for the victory in the afternoon with another strong slalom run. You have to be solid the entire day to achieve such a performance.”

“The slalom course was not as easy to race as it seems, especially in the first steep part. But I didn’t calculate, I just went for it, it’s still the best way to be focused and aggressive. It’s good to have such a nice advance on Aksel with all those remaining speed events. I think the battle can continue until the last race at the Finals. I have to be very consistent and make not mistake. It’s easy to lose 60 or 100 points with a stupid mistake.”

In the coming two speed events, Raich can hope to only lose a minimum of points on Svindal. He was twice 4th in Super-G here and 12th in downhill two years ago – better performances in fact than Aksel who never reached the top-10 here.

The double World Champion is aware of the tough challenges he is now facing in the Overall competition. “It will be tough, which is not really a surprise for me because I always knew how good Benjamin can be in big races,” he said.

“I have to keep on skiing at my best to have a serious chance now, but I’ll for sure do my best. I’m happy to have captured this Super-combined globe, I was hopping to reach it, but it was not so important after my great successes at Are. I’m also fighting for the title in giant slalom and in Super-G, so I have to excel in all coming races. I’ll try hard to make the fight interesting until the end.”

Saturday’s downhill could already be a turning point for the Norwegian and the other top-contenders. Svindal and Cuche are practically obliged to finish it on the podium and score “heavy” points to keep a real chance to seriously challenging their Austrian rival who apparently found back his best form just in time for the last act.

But there are many other skiers aiming for the podium here including Bode Miller, very fast in the short downhill this morning. On Sunday the skier from New Hampshire is also fighting for his second specialty World Cup in Super-G.