Worley wins GS in Shiffrin’s absence
Paris dominates downhill
LIENZ, Austria, Dec 28, (AP): French skier Tessa Worley won a women’s World Cup giant slalom Tuesday in the absence of Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin and world champion Lara Gut-Behrami.
Racing in flat lights on the Schlossberg course, Worley held onto her first-run lead to beat defending overall champion Petra Vlhova by three-tenths of a second.
Worley became only the third female skier with at least 15 World Cup wins in giant slalom, after Vreni Schneider (20) and Annemarie Moser-Pröll (16).
“Skiing today was really fun, the slope was perfect and I enjoyed the challenge being in front in the first run. I feel I can trust my skiing and I’m really glad about that,” Worley said.
Sara Hector of Sweden, who was second after the opening run, had two costly mistakes in her final run and dropped to third, .38 behind Worley. It was the third straight podium result for Hector, who had won her first GS in seven years last week.
Italian speed specialist Sofia Goggia, who is Shiffrin’s main challenger for the overall title, finished 1.72 behind in 12th and reduced her deficit to 93 points. The American also remained in the lead of the GS standings, leading Hector by 18 points.
SKIING
Shiffrin announced Monday she had tested positive for COVID-19, ruling the American out of the GS and Wednesday’s slalom, the last two races of the calendar year.
Gut-Behrami completed a 10-day quarantine following her positive test on Dec. 17 but her tests kept coming back positive, the Swiss ski team said.
Race director Peter Gerdol and another FIS official were also missing the event following positive tests.
No spectators were allowed at the race in the Lienzer Dolomites amid tight anticoronavirus measures in Austria.
In Bormio, Italy, Icy, bumpy, dark and gnarly.
The Stelvio course is skiing’s version of heavy metal. Which is why it fits Dominik Paris, the World Cup circuit’s resident heavy metal singer, so perfectly.
Paris dominated again for his record-extending seventh victory in Bormio on Tuesday and sixth in downhill - making him the first skier to win as many downhills at a single resort. The Italian broke a tie with Swiss standout Didier Cuche, who won five downhills in Kitzbühel, Austria.
Using his massive legs to absorb the Stelvio’s punishing terrain, Paris finished 0.24 seconds ahead of overall World Cup leader Marco Odermatt of Switzerland and 0.80 ahead of another Swiss skier, Niels Hintermann.
While officially no fans were permitted to attend the race because of anti-coronavirus measures, there were still plenty of cheers for Paris all the way down as recreational skiers tried to get as close to the race course as they could.
Paris’ other downhill wins in Bormio came in 2012 followed by four straight from 2017-19. He also won a super-G on the Stelvio in 2018.
With the 16th World Cup downhill win of his career, Paris moved ahead of Franz Heinzer and Hermann Maier into sole possession of fourth place on the all-time list. Only Franz Klammer (25), Peter Müller (19) and Stephan Eberharter (18) have more downhill wins than Paris.
Most of Paris’ wins came before he tore apart his knee in a crash while training in January 2020.
Odermatt put down what appeared to be a near-perfect run just before Paris started but the Swiss skier hardly had time to sit down in the leader’s seat before the Italian beat him.
CRICKET
The entire second day of the test was lost to rain but the match had still progressed rapidly at Centurion after an extended third day to make up the time and overs lost to the weather.
At the end of it, India was in position for a series lead that might give the top-ranked test team the impetus for a long-awaited first test series win in South Africa.
Even though India plunged quickly from 272-3 to 327 all out in the morning session at Super Sport Park, it still had enough runs in the bank from its fabulous first-day batting effort to take command.
But India needed its fast bowlers to make sure of that after its first innings was ended abruptly in the first 15.3 overs of the day, with South African quicks Lungi Ngidi and Kagiso Rabada combining for six of those seven wickets on Tuesday and nine of the 10 in the innings.