Skiing Roundup : Zurbriggen Wins World Cup Giant Slalom for Third Time

Pirmin Zurbriggen of Switzerland powered through a heavy mist Sunday at Todtnau, West Germany, to win his third World Cup giant slalom race of the season.

Zurbriggen, 24, who won the World Championship giant slalom title at Crans-Montana, Switzerland, last week, had a total time of 2:38.95 for two runs.

Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg finished second in 2:39.16, and Markus Wasmeier of West Germany was third in 2:39.27.

Zurbriggen’s 28th career World Cup victory since 1980 moved him into first place in the World Cup giant slalom standings with 102 points. Richard Pramotton of Italy has 95 and Joel Gaspoz of Switzerland is third with 91 points.

Zurbriggen leads the overall standings with 274 points. Wasmeier has 174 and Gaspoz is at 145.

Felix McGrath of Norwich, Vt., the only American who qualified for the second run, finished 16th with a combined time of 2:42.24.

Corinne Schmidhauser of Switzerland skied the fastest second heat to overtake Monika Maierhofer of Austria and win a World Cup slalom race by a hundredth of a second at Fluehli, Switzerland.

Schmidhauser, 22, second to Maierhofer after the first heat, won in a time of 1 minute 31.58 seconds.

Maierhofer finished in 1:31.59.

Slalom world champion Erika Hess of Switzerland was third in the last race in her homeland before she retires at the end of the season.

Schmidhauser moved into second place in the slalom standings with 97 points, two behind Tamara McKinney of Olympic Valley, Calif, who fell on the first run.