Girardelli Wins Alpine Gold in a Flash

Luxembourg’s Marc Girardelli, the hottest skier on the World Cup men’s circuit, flashed to the gold medal in the men’s combined competition today at the World Alpine Ski Championships.

Girardelli, the World Cup overall and downhill standings leader, finished one-hundredth of a second behind Italy’s Michael Mair in the combined downhill today. Coupled with his third-place finish in Monday’s slalom, it gave Girardelli a clear-cut victory in the combined.

Paul Accola of Switzerland survived an out-of-control run to claim the silver medal, and Guenther Mader of Austria took the bronze.

Easy Victory

Switzerland’s Pirmin Zurbriggen, rebounding from a bad fall during practice on Wednesday, finished fourth in the combined.

Girardelli, who has won three of the last four World Cup downhills and was a heavy favorite after his solid slalom placing, easily overtook the top two slalom finishers, Norway’s Ole Christian Furuseth and Sweden’s Jonas Nilsson, both of whom rarely compete in the downhill.

Girardelli was 76-hundredths of a second behind Furuseth in the slalom but was more than 10 seconds faster than Furuseth in the downhill.

The event was delayed by one hour because of fog, but there was an absence of the winds that aborted two days of training.