Hannes Reichelt overcomes fog to win World Cup downhill race

Hannes Reichelt led an Austrian sweep of a shortened downhill race on the Kandahar slope for his 10th career World Cup victory on Saturday in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Reichelt, the super-G world champion, had been quickest in both training sessions and he completed the course in 1 minute, 11.90 seconds, edging Romed Baumann by one hundredth of a second and Matthias Mayer by 0.24 seconds.

“It’s wonderful, also to tick off the Kandahar,” said Reichelt, who claimed silver in the super-G at the 2011 Worlds in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. “I’d have liked if it had been the longer course because the Kandahar offers everything - difficult turns and long straights.”

The challenging course was shortened to the super-G starting point after several delays due to persistent fog.

Mayer had been bidding for three straight victories after winning both the downhill and super-G at Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria, last weekend but the Olympic downhill champion had to skip Friday’s training session due to a cold.

Italy’s Silvano Varettoni and Dominik Paris were fourth and fifth, respectively.

Marco Sullivan was the highest-placed American, 0.39 behind in sixth, ahead of Austrians Vincent Riechmayr and Georg Streitberger, while fellow U.S. skiers Steven Nyman, Travis Ganong and Andrew Weibrecht were 17th, 22nd and 33rd, respectively.

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The women’s World Cup super-G has been canceled for a second straight day due to fog in southern Bulgaria.

Organizers called off the event in Bansko following a third interruption, after a blanket of cloud obscured the top of the 1.7-kilometer course.

Thirteen of the 56 competitors raced before the event was canceled, with three failing to finish, including Switzerland’s Fabienne Suter who protested after crashing into a gate in heavy fog.