Reinfried Herbst upsets favorites

Patrick Lang 09.02.2008 18:26 Uhr

Reinfried Herbst, a surprise silver medallist at the 2006 Olympics, notched a convincing victory in a World Cup slalom on Saturday.

The Austrian took advantage of a lackluster day for the favorites to win only the second World Cup race of his career after dominating both legs to beat Italy's Manfred Moelgg by 65/100 of a second while Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic came in 3rd, 1.18 seconds off the pace.

Another Italian, Christian Deville was 4th ahead of France’s Julien Lizeroux.

Pre-race favorites as Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Grange, Benjamin Raich or local hero Christian Neureuther finished far behind the winners while Mario Matt already crashed in the first leg.

Grange finished a far 25th way yet he still leads the slalom standings since Raich could not do better than 11th and Neureuther 17th.

A strong comeback for Reinfried
Herbst had taken an unexpected 2nd place on an all-Austrian podium at the Turin Olympics behind Benjamin Raich and ahead of Rainer Schoenfelder. The 2006 season was by far his best as he obtained his only victory to date in Shigakogen, Japan, that year.

Unfortunately, he could not confirm his potential last season after injuring himself seriously at a knee in the following summer while playing soccer with friends. He could not do better than 7th at the Finals at Lenzerheide and lost his spot in first seed afterwards.

Yet he started the season with a promising 6th place at Bad Kleinkirchheim and a 4th at Alta Badia but he failed to do better in the following slalom races.

On Saturday, the 29-year-old who recently became father of a son named Felix, seized his chance when most of the leading slalom specialists failed to sparkle.

“It’s unbelievable, I can’t explain what I feel inside me right now, this is huge,” he said afterwards. “I had a hard time these past weeks especially at Schladming where the course was already in bad shape when I started,” added the Austrian. “The course was in great shape here and I had no problems with my bib number 15.”

“I felt confident prior the race, I trained well during the last weeks and I had something to prove today,” he added. “I wish to thanks all my fans who strongly supported me this winter, I’m happy to spend some time with them now this evening.”

Local favorite Felix Neureuther, 4th in the morning, paid a high price for a big error near the end of the afternoon run. He was 2nd here a year ago.

With Finn Kalle Palander out for the rest of the season with a stress fracture and Olympic champion Raich still far from his best for a while now, the day belonged to relative outsiders.

Moelgg has yet to win a World Cup race, though Saturday's runner-up spot was his ninth podium placing. “I gave all what I had in me but Reinfried was just too strong for us today,” said the Italian who has been extremely consistent this season. “My day will come, I’m fully convinced that I’m going to win soon a slalom.”

Kostelic, one of the most popular skiers on the circuit and the winner of eight races, took his fourth podium in four weekends in succession. After excelling in combined events at Kitzbühel, Chamonix and Val d’Isère, the 2003 World Champion finally also achieved his potential in slalom reaching his first podium in the specialty since finishing 3rd at Alta Badia two years ago.

The 2002 World Cup Champion will be especially motivated next weekend for a slalom on home snow nearby Zagreb.

“The timing is perfect, this is really wonderful, I can’t ask for more,” said the elate Croat after the race. “I was aiming for a podium finish in slalom for quite a while now. My strong results in the recent combined slaloms were very encouraging, I’m really happy to have been able to achieve two aggressive runs today. Now I’m ready for next week.”