Palander Wins Slalom; Miller Fails to Finish

Kalle Palander of Finland won a World Cup slalom Sunday at Flachau, Austria, despite a cast on his right arm.

Palander, the defending World Cup slalom champion, has tendinitis in his right forearm. He was timed in 1 minute 42.24 seconds, finishing 0.54 of a second ahead of Manfred Pranger of Austria. Giorgio Rocca of Italy was third in 1:42.80.

Palander has been wearing his cast since before Christmas because of repetitive motion syndrome.

“The cast is not a problem,” he said. “In a race you can have pain and you don’t feel anything. It’s in training that it’s a problem. But I had injections and it was all right.”

Once again, Bode Miller of Bretton Woods, N.H., failed to finish. He straddled a gate midway down the run a day after he skidded off the course in a giant slalom. He has not scored points in a slalom since the end of last February, when he was sixth in South Korea.

“He is struggling with equipment and execution, and it’s tough to have confidence when you haven’t finished so many slaloms in a row,” U.S. Coach Phil McNichol said.

Miller was knocked out of the race after taking a very direct line above the hairpin, hitting a gate with his boots and catching a buckle. It caused his feet to lock, and he went into the hairpin stumbling.

Benjamin Raich of Austria, the winner of Saturday’s giant slalom, was third heading into the final leg but dropped to fourth.

Palander jumped from fourth into a tie for first with Pranger in the discipline’s rankings.

He also climbed from ninth to third in the overall standings. Hermann Maier of Austria is the overall leader, followed by Raich. Miller is 10th.

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Alexandra Meissnitzer won a World Cup super-giant slalom for her first victory since 1999, leading a 1-2-3 Austrian sweep at Megeve, France.

Meissnitzer covered the twisting, tree-lined course in 1 minute 24.98 seconds. She was followed by Renate Goetschl in 1:25.19 and Michaela Dorfmeister in 1:25.40.

The top American finisher was Kirsten Clark of Raymond, Maine, who was sixth in 1:25.75. Caroline Lalive of Steamboat Springs, Colo., was 10th in 1:26.64.

This was Meissnitzer’s first victory in any Alpine skiing competition since she won the overall World Cup title in 1999. She won eight races that year, the last a downhill in Sierra Nevada, Spain.

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American Todd Lodwick won a Nordic combined event at Schonach, Germany, edging overall World Cup leader Ronny Ackermann of Germany by two ski lengths.

Lodwick finished the 15-kilometer race in 34 minutes 29.5 seconds, beating Ackermann by 0.7 of a second. Hannu Manninen of Finland was third, 0.9 behind. Olympic champion Samppa Lajunen of Finland was fourth, 7.8 seconds back.

Ackermann, who won five of the first six World Cup events this season, leads the overall standings with 662 points. Manninen is second at 510. Lodwick is sixth at 321.

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Peter Zonta of Slovenia recorded his first World Cup victory, winning the third leg of the Four Hills ski jumping tournament at Innsbruck, Austria.

Zonta capitalized on favorable wind in rallying from eighth place after his first jump. He was followed by two Finns, Veli-Matti Lindstrom and Janne Ahonen.

Zonta had jumps of 128 and 128.5 meters for 265.2 points. Lindstrom was second with 253.9 points (126.5-124) and Ahonen third at 253.8 (132.5-121).

Sigurd Pettersen of Norway, who finished fourth, leads the tournament with 800.8 points. He is followed by Martin Hoellwarth of Austria (773.9) and Zonta (760.2).

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Silke Kraushaar won the luge singles at the European championships in Oberhof, Germany, extending the German women’s streak to 78 consecutive international victories in the event.

Kraushaar broke the course record with her second run of 41.461 seconds, finishing in 1 minute 22.995 seconds. The Germans are unbeaten in the women’s singles since November 1997.

Tennis

Unseeded Maria Sanchez Lorenzo of Spain upset sixth-seeded Francesca Schiavone of Italy, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, in the first round of the Australian women’s hard-court championships at Gold Coast.

In other matches, defending champion Natalie Dechy of France defeated Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia, 6-3, 6-1, seventh-seeded Magui Serna of Spain beat Australian wild-card entry Casey Dellacqua, 6-2, 6-4, and eighth-seeded Patty Schnyder of Switzerland beat Jelena Jankovic of Serbia-Montenegro, 6-4, 6-0.

The $170,000 tournament is one of nine warmup events in Australia and New Zealand leading to the Australian Open, which begins Jan. 19.

Miscellany

Hall of Fame boxer Jeff Fenech was attacked by four men and stabbed in Sydney, Australia, and will have plastic surgery for deep facial cuts, police said. He said he did nothing to provoke the attack.

Fenech, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2002, won the International Boxing Federation bantamweight title in 1985, the World Boxing Council junior-featherweight title in 1987 and the WBC featherweight title in 1988. He retired in 1996 with a 28-3-1 record.

Passings

James “Doc” Counsilman, who coached the U.S. men’s Olympic swimming teams in 1964 and 1976, and wrote one of the sport’s most authoritative books, “The Science of Swimming,” died Sunday in Bloomington, Ind., of Parkinson’s disease. He was 83. Story in Section B.

Hardiman Cureton, an All-American guard on UCLA’s 1954 national championship football team, has died. He was 69. A three-year starter who also played defense, he died on Oct. 1 in Richmond, Va., of prostate cancer.