Renate Goetschl finally won her first race of the season and Austrian teammate Michaela Dorfmeister clinched the season's downhill title by finishing fourth Saturday.
It was Goetschl's ninth win in Cortina, giving her the record for most victories in one resort. Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark won eight times in Madonna di Campiglio.
"It's something very, very special to win nine times in one place and beat Stenmark, especially here in Cortina," Goetschl said.
PHOTO: AFP
Goetschl had not won since the final downhill of last season.
"Every victory is great but this one is more special because it was a very tough time for me," said Goetschl, who has finished atop the season downhill standings four times, winning the last two titles.
She covered a shortened Olympia delle Tofane course in 1 minute, 9.64 seconds.
Julia Mancuso of the US finished second, 0.05 seconds behind, to duplicate her runner-up result in Friday's super-G. Another Austrian, Elisabeth Goergl, was third at a gap of 0.30.
A snowstorm forced the start of the race to be delayed for three hours and led to the course being shortened.
Dorfmeister wrapped up the downhill crown with one race to spare -- the season's final downhill at the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden, in March. Dorfmeister won the previous downhill in St. Moritz on Jan. 21, finished second in two others and had two third-place finishes in the discipline.
Dorfmeister has 462 points, 132 more than American Lindsey Kildow, who was ninth Saturday.
At 32, Dorfmeister plans to retire after this season.
"Maybe that's my secret this season, I'm enjoying it every day," Dorfmeister said.
"When you have a smile at the start and you're having fun you always ski fast."
Croatia's Janica Kostelic finished 13th and retained her lead in the overall World Cup standings. Defending overall winner Anja Paerson sat the race out after winning Friday's super-G.
While Goetschl and Dorfmeister specialize in super-G and downhill, Mancuso excels in all four disciplines and will also be among the favorites in today's giant slalom.
ap, GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany
When Hermann Maier posted his first World Cup victory in 1997, he enthusiastically ordered a large beer at the post-race press conference as the other podium finishers sensibly sipped their bottles of mineral water.
Now older and wiser than he was immediately after that super-G win, and with more than 50 victories, Maier turned down the offer of a lager after his triumph in Saturday's downhill. Instead he requested a thick slice of Leberkaese Semmel -- a regional snack that resembles spam on a Kaiser bun.
"I'm ravenous."
"I don't ever remember fighting a course so fiercely before," said Maier after leading an Austrian sweep of the podium for his third victory of the season.
The 24th skier to start, Maier flopped down exhausted in the finish area after covering the dark, 3,455m Kandahar course in 1 minute, 57.56 seconds.
"At the second interval I was already so tired I was wondering what was going on," said Maier, who, like all the late starters, was forced to deal with the grooves and ruts created by the previous skiers. "This race is one of the hardest I can remember. It was so fast and so bumpy, especially with a late start number the course was chopped up.
"I knew I had to be absolutely at the limit or this course would beat me. I had to take full risks and concentrate fully or it would master me."
The Austrian, who also won a super-G in Kitzbuehel and a giant slalom in Soelden, is the only man to have posted victories in at least two disciplines this season.
"What we saw today was the Hermann Maier of old," said Austria's race director Hans Pum, referring to the aggression Maier used to display in every race before the 2001 motorcycle accident that nearly cost him his life and his leg.
But Maier dismissed this comparison.
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