Alice McKennis underlined the depth of American alpine skiing with her maiden World Cup downhill victory in St Anton yesterday.
While all eyes were on fellow-American Lindsey Vonn, who was making her comeback following a three-week break, McKennis stole the show.
The Colorado skier, 23, was the fourth US downhill specialist on a World Cup podium this season after Vonn, Stacey Cook and Leanne Smith, while Mikaela Shiffrin has emerged as a slalom sensation this winter.
Photo: Reuters
Vonn took time off to deal with health and personal problems after crashing out of a giant slalom in Courchevel a month ago.
The four-times World Cup champion had to be content with sixth place, 0.34 seconds behind her compatriot who won in a time of 1 minute, 14.62 seconds.
McKennis’ best result in the World Cup before yesterday had been seventh in the World Cup finals in Schladming last season.
Italy’s Daniela Merighetti was second, 0.07 seconds adrift, while Austria’s Anna Fenninger was 0.16 off the pace and finished third.
World Cup leader Tina Maze of Slovenia was a solid fourth, 0.30 behind, and took her overall lead to 488 points over Germany’s Maria Hoefl-Riesch.
Men’s Giant Slalom
AFP, ADELBODEN, Switzerland
American Ted Ligety claimed victory in the men’s World Cup giant slalom yesterday, safely negotiating a testing second leg that was the downfall of a raft of racers.
Ligety timed a combined total of 2 minutes 28.67 seconds for a fourth victory on the international circuit this season, 1.15 seconds ahead of Germany’s Fritz Dopfer. The podium was completed by a second German, Felix Neureuther.
Austrian favorite Marcel Hirscher, who had led after the first leg, dramatically missed a gate in a tricky lower part of the second run when he was leading by more than one second. He eventually finished in 16th spot.
“I was very lucky. Marcel Hirscher won this race today,” Ligety said. “He would have blown me out of the water.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier