ALPINE:

Innerhofer nips Neureuther for super-combi victory in Bulgaria

Feb. 26, 2011

BANSKO, Bulgaria — Christof Innerhofer of Italy skied a strong super-G to win the World Cup super-combined Saturday, edging Felix Neureuther of Germany by 0.01 seconds.

Giant slalom world champion Ted Ligety of the United States was fourth, matching his career best in the super-combined.

"I didn't feel like I had the greatest slalom in the world, but my super-G run was pretty good," Ligety said. "It was a pretty giant slalom friendly super-G hill, so that worked out well for me."

Innerhofer, who won the super-G world title two weeks ago, finished 11th in the slalom earlier Saturday, but rallied to win in 2 minutes, 23.87 seconds.

"Over the last couple of years my coach repeatedly tells me that super-G is my discipline," he said. "Guess he is right since this is my second gold in two weeks."

Thomas Mermillod Blondin of France was third, 0.33 seconds back — his first top-three result. Blondin hurt his hand at the end of last year and failed to qualify for the World Championships.

Jean-Baptiste Grange of France led after the slalom but crashed early in the super-G and did not finish. Ivica Kostelic of Croatia, who has already wrapped up the World Cup title for the discipline, was fifth.

Ligety was not the only American to ski well. Tim Jitloff was eighth — his best result in two years — and Colby Granstrom just missed his first World Cup points. He finished 31st despite having the 15th fastest slalom run.

"Jitloff did a hell of a job in the first run of slalom, skied clean and moved with the terrain well," said U.S. coach Sasha Rearick said. "It was a rough course. It held up but was rough with changing snow conditions."

Switzerland's Didier Cuche, Carlo Janka and Silvan Zurbriggen and Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal are taking a break after the worlds and did not compete.

Bansko played host to a men's World Cup race for the first time. Another first was that the slalom portion of the super-combined race was held first, instead of after the speed event.

The only Canadian taking part in the event was Michael Janyk from Whistler, B.C. Janyk, a technical skier, completed the slalom part to get some training in for Sunday's race. He finished in 12th place with a time of 1:01.37.

Sunday, the men will race slalom in Bansko.

— The Canadian Press and Alpine Canada contributed to this report

Bansko men's World Cup super-combined results