In a pair of World Cup alpine races in Santa Caterina, Italy, and Lienz, Austria, respectively, France's Adrien Theaux won a men's downhill, while Friday Hansdotter of Austria led the way in a women's slalom race.
Adrien Theaux won a wild World Cup downhill by a large margin Tuesday while Christof Innerhofer grabbed most of the attention by finishing fourth after skiing halfway down the course with a gate attached to him.
Theaux won in 1 minute, 47.29 seconds on the dark and steep Deborah Compagnoni course for a 1.04-second advantage over Hannes Reichelt of Austria. It was the Frenchman's third career win.
David Poisson of France came third, 1.15 behind — the first podium result in the 33-year-old's World Cup career.
Innerhofer missed the podium by just 0.07. About a minute into his run, the Italian got his left arm wrapped around a gate and the bright fluorescent orange panel and long pole caught onto his equipment.
After about 30 seconds, Innerhofer rid himself of the pole but he carried the panel to the finish at speeds of about 120 kph (75 mph) — earning the Italian loud cheers from the home crowd.
"Bode Miller's no longer around so there needs to be another crazy guy," Innerhofer said. "It was really at the limit and very dangerous. I couldn't see and I was carrying the pole and the panel. ... It felt like a parachute behind me."
Aksel Lund Svindal finished seventh, ending his run of three straight downhill wins.
Still, the Norwegian reclaimed the overall World Cup lead from Marcel Hirscher, who doesn't race downhill. Svindal moved 15 points ahead of his Austrian rival in the overall and maintained his lead in the downhill standings.
Ten of the 56 starters didn't make it to the finish, including several racers who lost a ski on the challenging course. Of the first six racers, only three completed their runs.
"It's really difficult and you had to have the legs," Theaux said. "I just tried to ski relaxed. If you push too much you go off line and break your legs. I like this kind of course where it's difficult and there are a lot of turns. The difficult part is you don't see anything."
Poisson took the bronze medal in downhill at the 2013 world championships but had never had success on the regular World Cup circuit.
"This is a big result for me," he said. "It was a long time."
Ben Thomsen was the top Canadian with an eighth-place finish. Jeffrey Frisch was 35th, Tyler Werry, 46th. Manny Osborne-Paradis and Broderick Thompson did not finish their runs.
Hansdotter takes slalom
Frida Hansdotter held on to her first-run lead to win a women's World Cup slalom on Tuesday and extend her lead in the discipline standings to 100 points.
The Swede finished in a combined time of 1 minute, 47.02 seconds to edge Wendy Holdener by 0.07 for her third career victory.
Austria's Frida Hansdotter won a World Cup slalom race at Lienz, Austria as she reached the podium for a fourth consecutive slalom race this season. (Christophe Pallot/Agence Zoom)
Petra Vlhova of Slovakia, who won the previous slalom in Are, Sweden, two weeks, posted the fastest second-run time and finished 0.43 behind in third.
Hansdotter, the only skier to reach the podium in all four slaloms this season, leads the discipline standings with 320 points, followed by Vlhova with 220 and Mikaela Shiffrin with 200. The Olympic champion from the United States won the first two races this season but is out recovering from a knee injury.
Mare-Michele Gagnon was the only Canadian to qualify for the second run, finishing in 10th spot. Erin Mielzynski and Laurence St-German did not qualify for the second trip, while Mikaela Tommy failed to finish the first run.
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