This Finnish Is Bad for Miller

Kalle Palander became the first Finnish man to win a World Cup Alpine skiing race, capturing a slalom Sunday in which Bode Miller of Franconia, N.H., finished 27th.

Palander, the 1999 world slalom champion, had a two-run time of 1 minute 41.75 seconds on the Ganslern course at Kitzbuehel, Austria.

Rainer Schoenfelder was second in 1:42.06 and fellow Austrian Heinz Schilchegger was third in 1:42.28.

Miller, the leader in the overall World Cup standings, trailed three U.S. teammates. Tom Rothrock was 19th, Chip Knight was 20th and Erik Schlopy 25th. He hoped to give the U.S. another victory after teammate Daron Rahlves won Saturday’s downhill.

Instead, Miller fell on his hip before bouncing up, then straddled a gate lower on the course. He hiked back up the slope to rerun the gate and finished 5.07 seconds behind Palander.

Miller knew his hopes of winning the slalom were gone, but he wanted to salvage a finish for the combined.

“I was skiing fast,” Miller said. “I was trying to win the slalom. Even if I had slowed down, I still probably would not have slowed down enough to not make mistakes. The course was really unforgiving, really challenging. But by the time I got to the finish, I was already over it.”

Michael Walchhofer of Austria won the combined, which adds the times from the weekend’s downhill and slalom. Miller was fifth and Stephan Eberharter of Austria was sixth.

Miller maintained his lead in the overall standings with 935 points. Eberharter is second with 905.

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Anja Paerson of Sweden dodged snowballs thrown by unruly fans and won a slalom at Maribor, Slovenia, for her third straight World Cup victory.

Paerson, the defending world champion and winner of a second straight giant slalom Saturday, was followed by Janica Kostelic of Croatia and Nicole Hosp of Austria.

Kostelic failed to win a slalom for the first time since December but clinched the season’s slalom title. Paerson led after the first run and won with a combined time of 1 minute 38.98 seconds.

“It was a difficult day with the outside disturbances,” Paerson said, referring to the snowballs and several flares that hampered her vision.

“I’m not disappointed, I’m angry. There were many snowballs coming but luckily not in my face. It is not a nice gesture to help Janica by trying to destroy the other racers.”

Kostelic, the Olympic slalom champion, was treated for dehydration early in the day and finished second in 1:39.16. Hosp, second in Saturday’s giant slalom, was timed in 1:39.32.

Thousands of boisterous Croat fans crossed into neighboring Slovenia to cheer Kostelic, and several of them tossed snowballs on the course.

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Norway’s Sigurd Pettersen soared 131.5 meters on his second jump at Sapporo, Japan, to win his second World Cup ski jumping title of the season. Pettersen had a jump of 129 meters on his first attempt for 271.4 points.

Swimming

Lindsay Benko of the U.S. set a world record in the 400-meter freestyle at the short course World Cup meet in Berlin.

She was timed in 3 minutes 59.53 seconds, easily breaking the mark of 4:00.03 set by Costa Rica’s Claudia Poll in 1997. Hannah Stockbauer of Germany finished second, four seconds behind.

Benko barely missed winning the overall title and the $50,000 first prize. Britain’s Alison Sheppard, who won the 50 freestyle, finished with 1,014 points, one ahead of Benko. Points were based on wins and times.

Thomas Rupprath of Germany won three events, including a world record in the 100 individual medley Saturday, to clinch the men’s overall title and $50,000.

Passings

Johnny Mauro, who drove in the 1948 Indianapolis 500, died in a head-on collision with a teenage driver Thursday night in Golden, Colo. He was 92.