ALPINE:

Worley makes it 3 straight GS wins

Dec. 28, 2010 

SEMMERING, Austria — Tessa Worley of France won a third straight women's World Cup giant slalom on Tuesday, while second-place Maria Riesch overtook Lindsey Vonn at the top of the overall standings.

The 21-year-old Worley, who also won at Aspen, Colorado, and St. Moritz, Switzerland, finished her two runs on the Panorama course in an aggregate time of 2 minutes, 9.66 seconds to beat Riesch by 0.62 on Tuesday. World champion Kathrin Hoelzl took third, 0.78 behind.

Canada's Marie-Michele Gagnon was 23rd.

"I did a very good first run but still didn't expect to win it," said Worley, who led Riesch by 0.49 after the opening run. "It's pretty difficult up there when you have to wait being the last starter. I just forced myself to think it was not a second run but just a whole new race I had to win."

Worley is still two consecutive wins away from the record held by Anja Paerson, who won five GS races in a row in 2004.

"Today, I felt a bit of pressure but I managed to shake it off by concentrating on the technical things of my skiing," Worley said.

Riesch just missed out on her first career GS victory but said she was happy with second place.

"More than 0.6 is a lot of difference and you should not be angry when finishing second," said Riesch, who also took second in a GS in Maribor last year.

Vonn, the three-time overall World Cup champion, was 1.40 behind in seventh and now trails Riesch by 41 points going into the final race of the calendar year — a slalom in Semmering on Wednesday.

Riesch said it was "obviously very nice" to lead the standings again.

"It's even better to be there at the end of the season as that's the only time it really matters," Riesch said. "I won't spill my energy on the standings in this stage of the season."

Neither does Vonn. The American said she would love start 2011 as the forerunner, but that she doesn't expect to overtake Riesch on Wednesday.

"I don't see that happening. In slalom you never know but I am not skiing as well in slalom as in GS right now," Vonn said. "It doesn't matter. After (a Jan. 4 slalom in) Zagreb, there are a lot of downhill races. That's where I'll make my points."

Vonn was unhappy with her second run, in which she seemed to hold back.

"I was in a good position to maybe get on the podium today," said Vonn, who was sixth after the first run. "I just got too round in the middle section, I just gave the course too much respect."

Giant slalom is the only discipline lacking on Vonn's victory list, though the American is convinced it won't take long for that to change.

"I am consistently skiing in the top 10 (of the GS) now and I haven't done that for the rest of my career," she said. "My confidence is there and I know what to do know. It's a matter of skiing an aggressive run from top to bottom but not overskiing and not making mistakes."

Vonn was passed by teammate Julia Mancuso, who had the second-fastest time in the final run to jump from 18th to fifth, 1.17 seconds behind Worley.

Mancuso said she was disappointed after her first run, where she lost time as she was skiing far from clean in much of the steep middle part of the course.

"I knew I had to do better," Mancuso said. "I have been skiing really fast in training so it was great to do that again in the second run."

Mancuso had an almost flawless final run and said "it's just about skiing smart. I've learned that going too straight doesn't work. I had to take it a little relaxed but also charging the whole way down."

Slovenia's Tina Maze was second after the opening run but dropped to sixth, while Kathrin Zettel of Austria, who won the last two races on this course in 2006 and '08, was 1.52 back in eighth.

Olympic champion Viktoria Rebensburg, who was 28th after a massive mistake in her opening run, posted the fastest second leg and finished ninth.

The 23rd-place result was Gagnon's third top-30 result in GS this season, which places her in 15th place in the event's overall ranking.

Gagnon, who was 19th after the first run, finished with a two-run combined time of 2:12.36 on the Magic Mountain in Simmering. She finished with the same time as Swedish Jessica Lindell-Vikarby.

"I'm a little bit disappointed. I didn't have a good second run. Obviously I have to be realistic, if it had been last year I would have been happy with a 23rd place, but I've been skiing really well in giant slalom this season so I had better expectations," said Gagnon, who had her best career GS result in St. Moritz with a fifth place.

"I need to stay positive, I know exactly what happened wrong. I made two huge mistakes in the second run and I know it will be easy to correct. I just had a bad day today, it happens," added Gagnon.

Marie-Pierre Préfontaine, who was the only other Canadian on the start list for the event, did not qualify for the second run, as she finished 50th.

"Marie-Pier has been skiing really well in training, she is winning all of her training runs and I'm really impressed with her skiing," said technical head coach Jim Pollock. "She was ahead of Marie-Michèle in the last section of the course and was aiming for a top 20, but made a mistake at the bottom of the course and that put her out of the top 30."

The Simmering World Cup continues Wednesday with a slalom night event. S-Magazine

— The Canadian Press and Alpine Canada contributed to this report

Semmering women's World Cup GS results