A Super-Giant Way to Bow Out : Skiing: Olympic gold medalist Diann Roffe-Steinrotter wins her first World Cup super-G in her final international race.

In a ski racing farewell comparable to Ted Williams’ final at-bat, the retiring Diann Roffe-Steinrotter went deep Thursday, winning her first World Cup super-giant slalom in her last international race.

Roffe-Steinrotter’s upset at the World Cup finals was nearly as improbable and emotional as her recent Olympic gold-medal victory in super-G had been.

Nine years had passed since her only World Cup victory--in a 1985 giant slalom at Lake Placid, N.Y.

“This is everything I’ve dreamed about for nine years,” she said.

Because ski racing is not baseball, and final ski runs don’t rank in lore with final home runs, the shelf life of Roffe-Steinrotter’s feat outside the ski industry figures to be short.

Nevertheless, Roffe-Steinrotter’s hands trembled in victory. When the 22nd and last racer crossed the finish, eliminating the chance of an upset of her upset, Roffe-Steinrotter extended her arms skyward and burst into tears.

The 26-year-old from Potsdam, N.Y., had not, as she had feared, bowed out of her 11-year career with a middle-of-the-pack showing, leaving the naysayers to doubt the significance of a career punctuated with periodic bursts of brilliance, yet lacking in World Cup consistency.

Instead, Roffe-Steinrotter seized the day with her winning run of 1 minute 24.93 seconds from the fourth starting position. Unlike in the Olympics, where she got a break when Germany’s Katja Seizinger, the world’s top super-G racer, crashed, Roffe-Steinrotter defeated Seizinger straight up on the Vail course.

Seizinger, skiing ninth, crossed 0.14 seconds slower. Admittedly, the German had more to lose, and skied tentatively to assure a finish and clinch the World Cup super-G title.

Appropriately, Austria’s Anita Wachter, who had shared with Roffe-Steinrotter the silver in giant slalom at the 1992 Albertville Olympics, finished third.

Roffe-Steinrotter had announced her retirement at the Olympics, and that apparently helped soften Thursday’s emotional blow for her.

“It’s sad,” she said. “I don’t want to stop, but I have to stop, because I said I was going to stop.”

Would she reconsider?

“No,” she said. “It’s 100%. That’s why I was crying.”

Her victory was similar to her gold-medal run at Lillehammer.

There, she started first and sweated out the rest of the field.

Here, she started fourth and did the same, first surviving Seizinger, then two Italians, Isolde Kostner, the Olympic super-G bronze medalist, and Bibiana Perez, ranked second in super-G.

Both crashed. Then came Wachter, skiing 17th, who made a mad dash to beat Roffe-Steinrotter’s time, only to fall .16 short.

Only then did the American nervously start accepting congratulations, not yet comprehending what she had done.

“Unbelievable,” her husband, Willi, said in the finish corral.

Who was going to argue?

“At Lillehammer, it was just hard work paying off, sort of like back at you, guys,” Diann said. “This was just an emotional release. I said to myself, ‘It’s over. It’s going to end now.’ ”

The Norwegians dominated the men’s afternoon super-G, with Jan Einar Thorsen defeating teammate Lasse Kjus by .44. Hans Knaus of Austria finished third.

American Tommy Moe, a pre-race favorite, skied sloppily but still finished a strong sixth.

“I knew I could win if I skied flawless,” Moe said. “But Thorsen won by almost a half second. I skied good. It was just a tough course. But I had a great season.”

With the victory, Thorsen leap-frogged over Moe, Austria’s Guenther Mader and Luxembourg’s Marc Girardelli to claim the men’s super-G title.

Girardelli blew a 69-point lead over Thorsen when he finished 10th. Thorsen, awarded 100 points for his victory, defeated Girardelli by five.

“I had a bad run on the lower part,” said Girardelli, who had won the World Cup downhill title Wednesday. “I’ll have to try next year again.”

World Cup Notes

With his fourth-place finish in super-G, Norway’s Kjetil Andre Aamodt clinched the overall men’s title with two races remaining. It was the first overall title for the 22-year-old Aamodt, who finished second last year to five-time champion Marc Girardelli. “It’s the greatest title you can win in skiing, in my eyes,” Aamodt said. Aamodt, who has supplanted Girardelli as “the world’s greatest skier,” already has won five Olympic medals.

Sweden’s Pernilla Wiberg, injured in Wednesday’s downhill, did not race Thursday, which virtually assures Switzerland’s Vreni Schneider of the overall women’s title.. . . Although Diann Roffe-Steinrotter’s World Cup career ended Thursday, she plans to race in next week’s U.S. Nationals at Winter Park, Colo.

Switzerland’s William Besse, the winner of Wednesday’s downhill, tore a ligament in his left knee during a nasty fall during the super-G. . . . After a day off today, the World Cup finals resume Saturday with the giant slalom, followed by Sunday’s slalom.