ARE, Sweden — Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway clinched his second World Cup overall title by a record-low two-point margin on Saturday, winning when Benjamin Raich of Austria straddled a gate in the opening run of the final slalom of the season.
“I could have clinched it in the giant slalom yesterday, but now it was up to Raich and he skied out,” Svindal said. “Today I was lucky. It’s not luck to get over 1,000 points in the World Cup. But to win by two points after he skis out is luck.”
Bode Miller, the defending men’s overall champion, sat out the last three weekends in Europe and skipped the World Cup finals. The American did not win a race all season.
Svindal competed in the first three races — the downhill, super-G and the giant slalom — at these finals despite a cold and high fever.
“Waking up today, I was feeling much better than yesterday,” he said. “Also, yesterday I was really disappointed. I had the ‘match point’ — I had the chance to take the overall. I wasn’t anywhere close.
“But after a couple of hours, it was like, ‘You know, this has been a great week, the season has been great. If I’m ending up second in the overall, I’m very happy with that. Benjamin deserves to win.’ ”
Mario Matt of Austria, who captured the slalom gold medal on the same hill at the 2007 world championships, won the race in a two-run total of 1 minute, 45.71 seconds for his 12th World Cup victory.
Raich, the only skier who could catch Svindal, trailed the Norwegian 1,009-1,007 going into the final race of the season. That proved to be the final standings as both were disqualified Saturday.
The winning margin was the smallest in World Cup history, and the winning total for Svindal — who also missed a gate — was the lowest ever.
Raich, who started first, quickly found his rhythm and skied smoothly through the first gates at the top of the course before straddling a gate about halfway down.
Vonn DQ’d in giant slalom.
Tanja Poutiainen of Finland clinched the World Cup giant slalom title by finishing second to Tina Maze of Slovenia in the final GS race of the season.
Overall champion Lindsey Vonn of the U.S. fell and missed a gate at the top of the course and didn’t qualify for the second run.
Maze led after the opening run and won in 2:26.41 for her eighth career World Cup win and her seventh in the GS.
Poutiainen was 1.12 behind, and Manuela Moelgg of Italy was third, 1.39 back.
Vonn, a Ski Club Vail product, finished eighth in the GS standings. She topped the final overall standings with 1,788 points. Maria Riesch of Germany finished second with 1,424 and Austrian Kathrin Zettel third with 1,059.
Footnotes.
Anssi Koivuranta of Finland closed in on the overall World Cup title by holding off Bill Demong of the U.S. to win a nordic combined event in Vikersund, Norway.
Koivuranta won the ski jumping portion and then managed to protect his lead in the 10-kilometer cross country race, finishing in 26:03.9. Demong, the American large-hill world champion from Vermontville, N.Y., finished 6.5 seconds back after starting the cross country race with a deficit of 1:25 to Koivuranta.
• Sami Jauhojarvi of Finland won the men’s 50-kilometer race, and Petra Majdic of Slovenia claimed the women’s 30K event at a World Cup cross country meet in Trondheim, Norway.
• Austria won a team ski jumping World Cup event in Vikersund after dominating both heats.
The Associated Press
