Fenninger seals 2nd straight World Cup title
Print Edition
AUSTRIAN racer Anna Fenninger successfully defended her World Cup and giant slalom title after winning the season-ending GS race in Meribel, France, yesterday.
World GS champion Fenninger was 18 points ahead of Olympic champion Tina Maze of Slovenia in the overall standings and sealed the trophy in style with a commanding performance on the Roc de Fer course.
The 25-year-old Fenninger finished .38 seconds ahead of countrywoman Eva-Maria Brem — her only rival for the GS title — and .46 clear of Maze, the World Cup champion two seasons ago.
Fenninger dropped to the floor and sobbed after seeing her winning time, while the 31-year-old Maze looked pensive as she hunched over her ski poles.
The result saw Fenninger not only leapfrog Maze to the top of the overall standings by 22 points, but also allowed her to claim the smaller globe for the discipline’s best performer over a thrilling season.
Earlier, Marcel Hirscher completed a clean sweep at the World Cup finals when he added the slalom crystal globe to his fourth successive overall title.
The Austrian, crowned overall World Cup champion after Saturday’s GS, dominated the final race of the season to topple Germany’s Felix Neureuther from the top spot in the discipline.
Hirscher clinched his eighth victory of the winter in a combined time of 1 minute and 33.53 seconds, 0.83 ahead of former slalom Olympic champion Giuliano Razzoli of Italy while Russia’s Alexander Khoroshilov was third, 1.09 adrift.
He beat Neureuther by 23 points to end the season with three crystal globes — overall, GS and slalom — and a sweep of the technical disciplines.
“I didn’t have the choice. I needed to finish first or second to beat Felix. So the tactics were pretty simple,” said Hirscher.
“Felix and I are very good friends and that’s why I can’t rejoice completely. It’s the third time I took the cup away from him under his nose.”
“Marcel, when he skis like that, and it’s the finals and it’s about the globe, he’s difficult to beat,” said Neureuther, who cited lingering back problems to explain his disappointing 12th place in yesterday’s slalom.
In the final overall standings, the best skier of the last four seasons eventually left closest rival Kjetil Jansrud of Norway 160 points behind.
Jansrud had decided not to take part in the slalom, effectively handing Hirscher, 25, the season’s overall title, but took the downhill and super-G crowns. The 29-year-old said his two globes had made it a “great season” for him. “I don’t feel like I am losing out on the overall, I had a good fight.”
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