World Cup Skiing : West Germany’s Wasmeier Is Successful in Comeback

Markus Wasmeier of West Germany, who spent more than six weeks in a cast recovering from a serious back injury last year, won the first men’s World Cup Super-G ski race of the season Sunday.

Wasmeier damaged several vertebrae at Furano, Japan, and missed summer training. But he came back prepared for this winter.

Sunday, he scored his seventh World Cup victory and fifth Super-G win of his career by rushing down a course of soft snow in 1 minute 29.16 seconds.

Franck Piccard of France was second in 1:29.46, followed by Switzerland’s Pirmin Zurbriggen, who won Saturday’s downhill here, in 1:29.62.

Starting 14th, Wasmeier, who had finished 41st in the downhill, skied smoothly over the 2,465-meter course, which dropped 620 meters and had 45 gates.

The best American finisher was A.J. Kitt of Rochester, N.Y., who was 45th in 1:32.56.