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French hopes for a fourth World Ski Championships medal diminshed somewhat after Alexis Pinturault lost valuable time in the downhill section of the men’s super-combined event yesterday. |
But a trio of favourites in Croatian veteran Ivica Kostelic, American Ted Ligety and Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal were all well placed for a charge onto the podium, the former facing the biggest deficit of 1.37sec.
After a gold-silver-bronze showing by the unlikely trio of Marion Rolland, Gauthier de Tessieres and David Poisson, Pinturault was considered one of the favourites in the super-combined, where times over one downhill and one slalom are aggregated.
But the 21-year-old made a horrible mistake high up on the Planai course in the downhill, a bad landing from a jump seeing him going off course.
The Frenchman eventually came through the finish line 3.35sec off Austrian Romed Baumann’s leading pace of 2min 01.38sec, leaving himself no option but a no-holds barred run in the evening’s slalom set for later in the day.
Defending champion Svindal, fresh from downhill gold and super-G bronze here, was second at 0.14sec, with Italian Christof Innerhofer in third a further 0.24sec adrift despite a bad mistake.
“I was faster than the world downhill champion so that’s already nice!” Baumann said of finishing ahead of Svindal.
“The slalom will be brutally difficult,” the Austrian said. “I took all I could out of the downhill, I didn’t have much more to give.
“Now in the slalom, I’m not going to worry too much. I’m really looking forward to it and I hope the public will help me down.
“It couldn’t be better. The lead on the slalom racers is not extremely big but they have to race a perfect slalom. I’ll be the last to race and I hope that I’m lucky today.”
Svindal added: “I’m in second place now but it’s the time difference that’s important and it’s a little too close with the slalom guys.
“But you know it’s not over until it’s over so we’ll see.
“It’s very icy. it’s one of the most difficult slaloms. It will be difficult for us.”
France’s Adrien Theaux was in fourth at 0.40sec, ahead of downhill silver medallist Dominik Paris of Italy and giant slalom specialist and 2006 Olympic super-combined champion Ligety, who also won the super-G here.
“It was really tough, I was bouncing around everywhere,” Ligety said. “Hopefully I can have a good slalom.”
The 33-year-old Kostelic, a two-time combined World Cup winner and double Olympic silver-medallist in the discipline, will fancy also his chances in the slalom, his favoured event.
Another not to be ruled out is Austrian veteran Benjamin Raich.
Raich, combined world champion in 2005 and World Cup crystal globe winner in that discipline in 2010, was just 1.52sec off the pace, and will be hoping to boost the host nation with a much-clamoured second medal for his team.