Austria’s Kathrin Zettel won the women’s World Cup slalom in dominant style on Sunday, holding off compatriot Marlies Schild.
World champion Schild was denied a 34th slalom victory, which would match the record in the discipline of Swiss great Vreni Schneider.
Red-hot Slovenian Tina Maze, whose giant slalom victory on Saturday was her second in as many races in the discipline this season, settled for third.
Photo: Reuters
She grabbed the last podium place ahead of German Maria Hoefl-Riesch, who was skiing with a bruised left arm after a crash on Saturday.
Zettel, who was runner-up to Maze on Saturday, led after the opening leg, with Maze in second.
Zettel then delivered a blistering top second leg of 49.72 seconds for a combined time of 1 minute, 42.46 seconds.
Photo: EPA
She finished 67-hundredths of a second faster than training partner Schild, who clocked a combined 1:43.13, with Maze third with a combined time of 1:44.27.
“I love Aspen! It’s where I had my first podium, my first victory,” said Zettel, who claimed her first top-three World Cup finish there in 2005 and her first win in a giant slalom the following year.
Sunday’s win was the ninth of a career that had been slowed by injury and her first since 2010.
It was all the sweeter that it came against Schild, the skier that Zettel said was the driving force of the Austrians in training.
Maze remained atop the overall standings with 310 points after four events, with Zettel second on 260.
“I’m feeling fit and strong,” the Slovenian said. “Everything is going well for me.”
The US’ four-time overall World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn, still regaining fitness after an intestinal illness that landed her in hospital for a couple of days this month, opted not to compete.
She missed a second straight slalom, having also opted out of the season opener in the discipline at Levi, Finland, won by Hoefl-Riesch.
Vonn, who was 21st and clearly exhausted after Saturday’s giant slalom, is hoping to have her stamina back next weekend when the women travel to Lake Louise for their first speed events of the season.
Vonn won all three races there last season.
Lake Louise Winterstart
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Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway edged Adrien Theaux of France by 0.85 seconds to win a super-G race on Sunday and complete a sweep of the World Cup races at the Lake Louise Winterstart event.
Svindal also won Saturday’s downhill, making him the first man to win both races at Lake Louise since Bode Miller in 2004.
He also won the super-G at Lake Louise last year.
“Most racers, including myself, you don’t have the chance to win World Cups every day and when you feel you have a chance, you have to get after it,” Svindal said. “Yesterday and today, I felt: ‘This is a race I can win,’ and you’ve got to try and take advantage of those opportunities.”
The Norwegian was timed in 1 minute, 34.96 seconds. Joachim Puchner of Austria was third in 1:35.86 and Ted Ligety of the US was fourth in 1:35.87.
Five years ago, Svindal crashed spectacularly in a downhill training run at Beaver Creek, Colorado. Broken bones in his face and a severe laceration in his abdomen sidelined him for the entire 2007-2008 season.
The 29-year-old said the crash changed him as a racer. He was coming off a super-G win in Lake Louise and felt like Superman when he arrived in Beaver Creek.
“I was a second ahead of everyone on the training run, which is unnecessary because it was the first training run,” Svindal recalled. “I went down hard and when I hit the fence, I wasn’t so much Superman any more.”
“The kind of risks I took yesterday and today, there’s no need to take in training and that’s the lesson learned from that experience,” he added.
Svindal returned to capture the overall World Cup title in 2009 and the Olympic gold medal in super-G, silver in downhill and bronze in giant slalom at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
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Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB