4th victory for Benjamin Raich at Schladming

Patrick Lang 31.01.2007 08:35 Uhr

Benjamin Raich ruled once more the spectacular night slalom at Schladming where he celebrated his very first World Cup win eight years ago. The reigning Olympic and World Champion in that event captured his second slalom race of the season after a dramatic battle against the recent winner from Kitzbühel, Sweden’s new star Jens Byggmark and the 2001 World Champion Mario Matt, twice 2nd in Kitzbühel last weekend.

It’s the fourth time in his career that the skier from Pitztal, in Tyrol, enjoyed such a triumph in front of nearly fifty thousand people and it’s also his 26th World Cup win since January 1999.

Raich came in 2nd in the first leg dominated by his teammate Matt while Byggmark was 3rd after a series of small mistakes which cost him half a second. In the final run, the Swede took again all risks to set the best time on the technically very challenging Planai course but it was not enough to prevail as he did it twice at Kitzbühel.

A bad back for Matt
Raich lost only 4/100 of a second on him in that run which allowed him to take the lead with an advance of 38/100 on his young rival for the greatest joy of the huge crowd. Matt, who suffers again from his back since Kitzbühel, could not cope with that pace and moved back to 3rd place with a delay of 60/100 from Raich.

Switzerland’s Marc Berthod was again a strong 4th as in Kitzbühel but he lost almost two second on the Austrian who moved-up in the Overall and slalom standings with this latest triumph.

Aksel Svindal came in 13th and retained the lead in the general classification but with an advance of 75 points on Raich. Switzerland’s Didier Cuche is 3rd with 677 points and Bode Miller, who scored his first points in slalom in finishing 25th and dead-last, sits in 4th place with 640 points. The final winner at Lenzerheide certainly belongs to this impressive group of top-champions.

Italy’s Giorgio Rocca, who straddled one of the first gates at Kitzbühel last Sunday, finished 5th ahead of his promising teammate Manfred Moelgg, 3rd at Kitzbühel that day. Finland’s Kalle Palander, last year’s winner, was pretty unlucky this time. He straddled a gate in the lower part of the first run after clocking a fast intermediate time. It’s the first time this season that he doesn’t score World Cup points.

Urs Imboden, a Swiss racer skiing for Moldavia this winter, also had a reason to be satisfied after that prestigious race. He put his new country on the ski map in qualifying for the second run of this treacherous race. Unfortunately, he could not score his very first World Cup points for that young republic situated in eastern part of Europe because he lost too much time on the winner – over ten seconds. But he should soon succeed!

With eight skiers finishing in the points including three among the top-10, Swede achieved an impressive team performance, certainly one of the best since the days of the great Ingemar Stenmark. The Scandinavian will be hard to beat in three weeks at Are.

A tough race for “Big ben”
It’s the second slalom win this season for Raich who had a perfect start in Levi last November, before failing to score points at Beaver Creek and Alta Badia in the following weeks. Last week he seemed to have lost part of his touch in Kitzbühel where he was 5th and 6th. The extremely demanding race condition certainly helped him this night as well as the strong support from his supporters.

“It was incredibly tough this time, the snow was icy and the courses very challenging, it was impossible to achieve a perfect run but I fought very hard,” he said after the race. “It’s really a special place for me since my first win in 1999, the spectators were again fantastic and helped me a lot to reach my limits in both runs,” he added. “I’m very happy to have captured again that big race which I like so much. It’s excellent for my confidence before travelling to Sweden.”

Besides his four victories here, he also finished three times on the podium – an impressive consistency for the 29-year-old Tyrolian who proved once more that he remains pretty cool now in big moments.

Raich, who doesn’t compete in the speed events at Are, has two titles to defend there, the first in combined next week and another one in slalom on the last weekend.

A fabulous race for Jens
Byggmark too showed strong nerves this night. He is the only skier to have ended all the recent slaloms among the top-10. “What a fabulous race it was, it was great fun and I’m very happy with my result,” he said. “I was just aiming for another good race this night and to be again on the podium here is huge,” he said with his typical grin. “It was really exciting and I was having a lot of fun.”

The skier from Taernaby has kept a nice lead of 58 points on Raich in the slalom standings with only three races to go at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Kranjska Gora and Lenzerheide. The battle between both champions promises to be spectacular!

The World Cup tour is on hold now for the coming three weeks. The next stop is scheduled end of February at Garmisch-Partenkirchen for two downhill races and a slalom.

On Saturday the FIS Alpine World Championships will begin on Saturday at Are with an exciting Super-G. Defending champion Bode Miller remains the favourite for this opening event that he won last year during the 2006 Finals.