Carlo Janka won the final downhill of the season yesterday to take the overall World Cup lead with three races remaining.
The Olympic giant slalom champion edged Mario Scheiber of Austria, meaning that the once powerful Austrian team failed to win a downhill race all season for the first time since 1991-1992.
Patrick Kueng of Switzerland and Erik Guay of Canada shared third place.
The Swiss skiier’s third downhill victory of the season gave him a 54-point leader over Benjamin Raich of Austria in the race for the overall title. Raich did not compete in the downhill and will look for his chances in the giant slalom and slalom. A victory is worth 100 points.
Janka covered the 3,300m Kandahar course in one minute, 58.45 seconds. Scheiber was .02 seconds behind and Kueng and Guay, who won a super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway, on Sunday, were both .07 behind.
“In the first half of the race it was not perfect surely, but I made no mistakes at the bottom half,” Janka said after his seventh career victory.
One of the late starters at No. 20, Janka said he benefited from better conditions.
“I had better visibility,” he said.
Didier Cuche of Switzerland had already secured the downhill title and finished eighth yesterday skiing with a sore back.
“I almost didn’t make it to the start,” said Cuche, who needed a painkilling shot.
Janka said the overall title would be a fine end to an already good season.
“I knew that this was the event where I needed to win some points. The race was very tight and I was the lucky one, I was on the right side of the clock,” he said.
“It’s still [on] the cards, the course suits me and I think I can be fast tomorrow as well [in the super-G],” Janka said. “These are the races I needed to do well in because I will be behind Raich in the technical events” — giant slalom and the slalom that conclude the season.
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and partner Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia yesterday advanced to the women’s doubles final at the Australian Open after defeating New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe and Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-3 in their semi-final. Hsieh has won nine Grand Slam doubles titles and has a shot at a 10th tomorrow, when the Latvian-Taiwanese duo are to play Taylor Townsend of the US and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic in the championship match at the A$96.5 million (US$61 million) outdoor hard court tournament at Melbourne Park. Townsend and Siniakova eliminated Russian pair Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva 6-7
Manchester City have reached do-or-die territory in the UEFA Champions League earlier than expected ahead of what Pep Guardiola has described as a “final” against Club Brugge today. City have disproved the suggestion a new format to Europe’s top club competition would remove any jeopardy for the top clubs as Guardiola stares down the barrel of failing to make the Champions League knockout stages for the first time in his career. The English champions have endured a torrid season both in their English Premier League title defense and on the continent. A run of one win in 13 games, which included Champions League
Things are somewhat out of control at the Australian Open this year, and that has only a little to do with the results on the courts. Yes, there were some upsets, including Madison Keys eliminating No. 2 Iga Swiatek in the women’s singles semi-finals on Thursday. It also was the first time since 1990 that three teenagers beat top-10 men’s seeds at a Grand Slam tennis tournament. The loser of one of those matches, Daniil Medvedev, got fined US$76,000 for behaving badly. Last year’s women’s singles runner-up exited in the first round. However, the real fuss is happening elsewhere. The rowdy fans, for one
The CTBC Brothers from Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) on Friday announced they reached an agreement with the team’s shortstop Chiang Kun-yu (江坤宇) to extend his contract by 10 years in a deal that could worth up to NT $147.88 million (US$4.5 million). Including a NT$10 million incentive bonus, the 24-year- old’s new contract stipulates that his monthly salary will be NT$660,000 starting this year, increasing to NT$1.2 million from the fifth year of the deal. Chiang’s new agreement also comes with a caveat in the form of a “player option” where he would have the choice to become a free
RSS