Bassino wins race; Shiffrin gets sixth
Italian skier gets third win of season by topping Worley
Marta Bassino held on to her first-run lead to win a women’s World Cup giant slalom by a big margin on Saturday, earning her third victory this season.
The Italian coped best with tough course conditions as she held off a challenge by Tessa Worley.
Worley, the former two-time GS world champion from France, was fastest in the final run but still came up eight-tenths of a second short of Bassino.
Michelle Gisin was 1.46 behind in third for the Swiss skier’s first podium in GS.
Petra Vlhova was fourth and remained in the lead of the overall standings.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who was fourth after the opening run, dropped to sixth. The Olympic champion trailed Bassino by 2.18 seconds.
Men’s slalom: Manuel Feller raced through driving snow to win a World Cup slalom after
Clement Noel let a first-run lead slip away for the second straight race. Feller rose from third fastest in the morning to edge Noel by 0.43 seconds and regain the slalom standings lead on a course named for Austrian great Hermann Maier. Marco Schwarz was third, trailing his Austria teammate by 0.70 — and a single point in the season-long standings.
Luge: Felix Loch is about to reclaim his title as World Cup luge overall champion. The two-time Olympic champion from Germany is now virtually assured of claiming the seasonlong men’s overall title for the seventh time after dominating yet another race Saturday. He was a quarter-second faster than Austria’s Jonas Mueller for the win, his eighth in nine races this season. Austria’s David Gleirscher was third, one spot ahead of Germany’s Johannes Ludwig.
Bobsled: History for Kaillie Humphries. History for Francesco Friedrich. For a pair of bobsledders who have dominated their eras, Saturday’s victories will stand out. Humphries won her debut race in the Women’s Monobob World Series, while Friedrich won the 47th World Cup gold medal of his career to break a tie with fellow German Sandra Kiriasis for the most by any bobsled pilot. Monobob — one woman in the sled — will be offered at the Olympics for the first time at the Beijing Games next year. Humphries, who now races for the U.S., won two golds and a bronze in women’s bobsledding while competing for Canada at the past three Olympics. She’ll be a medal favorite in that discipline in Beijing, but her win Saturday announces her as a top monobob contender as well. Humphries won the monobob race by two-tenths of a second over Germany’s Laura Nolte. Switzerland’s Martina Fontanive was third, Germany’s Stephanie Schneider was fourth and Elana Meyers Taylor of the U.S. took fifth. Friedrich got his recordbreaking win in Saturday’s two-man race, teaming with Alexander Schueller.