Grange again in the lead

Patrick Lang 12.01.2008 11:33 Uhr

A few hours after celebrating his first ever victory in a Super-combined thanks to a stunning slalom run, Jean-Baptiste Grange successfully returned on the treacherous “Maennlichen” course to clock the fastest time in the first run of today’s slalom.

The 23-year-old Frenchman from Valloire had no problem dealing with poor visibility because of heavy snowfalls to beat by 46/100 of a second Austria’s reigning World Champion Mario Matt and by 58/100 Sweden’s Jens Byggmark. Matt won last week’s slalom at Adelboden.

Benjamin Raich, a multiple winner here in past years came in 4th ahead of Finland’s Kalle Palander and Italy’s Giorgio Rocca.

Bode Miller, 3rd in Friday’s Super-combined, was a strong in 15th, losing only 1,16 seconds on the leader. He didn’t reach the top-10 in a World Cup slalom since finishing 8th here backing January 2006.

Grange, who won a slalom at Alta Badia four weeks ago after dominating both runs, likes the difficult slalom slope at Wengen where he only raced a few times since the start of his career.

“It’s perfect for me, very steep and technical demanding too, I felt comfortable this morning even thought I spent much energy yesterday with all my obligations and presentations I had to go through until late in the evening,” he explained. “I could not rest and relaxed as much as I use to so I’m pretty pleased with that solid run this morning.”

“I hope the course conditions remain fair for the second run, it could well be pretty tough for the last starters,” the Frenchman added.

A foot of fresh snow covered the slope around Wengen in the morning yet the numerous course workers managed to take out most of the new snow from the course.

No French skier won the slalom at Wengen since Jean-Noel Augert’s triumph in January 1972 – and triple Olympic champion Jean Claude Killy is the last Frenchman to have captured both the slalom and the combined here in 1967 – after also winning the downhill.