Winter Sports Roundup : Italy’s Tomba Wins Slalom in Austria

Alberto Tomba of Italy scored his fourth victory of the season Sunday in a men’s slalom race at Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria, to increase his overall lead in the World Cup standings.

Austrians Thomas Stangassinger and Bernhard Gstrein finished 2-3.

Tomba maneuvered the Strohsack course in 56.40 seconds and 1:02.06 for a combined time of 1:58.46, beating Stangassinger by more than two seconds.

The win put Tomba 80 points ahead of Gstrein in the slalom standings with a total of 120 points. In the overall standings, Tomba has 181 points, which is 30 ahead of Switzerland’s Pirmin Zurbriggen.

Felix McGrath of Norwich, Vt., was the best American, placing seventh in 2:01.93.

Bad Kleinkirchheim was the last World Cup slalom before the Winter Olympics.

Dan Simoneau of Bend, Ore., and Nancy Fiddler of Crowley Lake, Calif., were the top men’s and women’s finishers in the first of four days of competition at Biwabek, Minn., for 13 spots on the U.S. Olympic cross-country ski team.

More than 300 men and women are scheduled to participate this week in the qualifying races at Giants Ridge for the honor of representing the United States at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta.

Simoneau won the men’s 30-kilometer classical event with an unofficial time of 1:31:13.0.

In the women’s 10-kilometer classical event, Fiddler led with an unofficial time of 34:40.3.

In World Cup speed skating competition at Davos, Switzerland, Jens-Uwe Mey of East Germany won two of three events, but U.S. skaters also fared well.

Mey won the 500-meter race in 36.86 seconds, followed by three Americans. Nick Thometz was second in 36.97, Dan Jansen was third in 37.01, and Marty Pierce was fourth in 37.19. It was Mey’s second 500-meter victory in as many days.

The East German also won the 1,000-meter competition in 1:14. He finished .32 of a second ahead of runner-up Igor Zhelezovski of the Soviet Union.

Jansen was third in 1:15.21, and Thometz finished fifth in 1:15.68.

In the 5,000-meter race, Tomas Gustafson of Sweden and Leo Visser of the Netherlands tied for first. Both had times of 6:59.97.

At Kongsberg, Norway, Andrea Ehrig of East Germany won all four scheduled races and clinched her fourth straight overall title in the two-day women’s European Speed skating Championships.

Ehrig amassed 180.163 points. After winning the 500- and 3,000-meter races on Saturday, she won the 1,500- and 5,000-meter events in 2:12.46 and 8:01.85, respectively, on Sunday.

Gunda Kleemann, also of East Germany, placed second in all four races and was overall runner-up with 181.594 points.

Frank Masley and Tim Nardiello became the first 1988 Olympic luge team members for the United States after placing first and second in the final men’s race of the Olympic Trials at Mt. Van Hoevenberg near Lake Placid, N.Y.

In winning the race with a three-run total of 2:09.41, Masley, 27, of Newark, Del., also claimed his ninth national title. The two-time Olympian has won six national singles titles and three doubles titles.

In World Cup ski jumping competition at Gallio, Italy, Ernst Vettori of Austria won for the 11th time this season.