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Miller Wins Super Combi, Clinches Title
VAL d'ISERE, France (Feb. 3) - World Cup overall leader Bode Miller (Bretton Woods, NH) led the downhill portion of a super combined Sunday and went on to win, clinching the World Cup combined title. Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) moved up 17 places in the lone run of slalom to finish 22nd in the soft snow.
The super combined blends a shortened downhill and one run of slalom. After heavy snows Saturday forced postponement of a World Cup downhill, course workers prepared the course for the one-day combined. Soft snow affected some racers, especially in the morning downhill run.
Miller added a fourth alpine discipline title with a two-run time of 2:18.45. Ivica Kostelic of Croatia was second in 2:18.83. Ligety, the only other American to finish, was 39th in the downhill and had a total time of 2:21.86.
With his fifth victory of the winter, Miller padded his overall lead to 122 points over Benjamin Raich of Austria. Ligety is sixth overall. Miller, a Carrabassett Valley Academy graduate, previously had won giant slalom (2004), super G (2007, '95) World Cup championships as well as the 2005 overall title.
It was the 30th win of his career, the U.S. record, for Miller. He has won a combined or super combined on each of the last three weekends - in Kitzbuehel, Austria, and then Chamonix and Val d'Isere in France.
Miller led the downhill with a time of 1:33.88, more than a second ahead of Swiss skier Didier Defago. The only skier who could challenge him for the super combined crown was Jean-Baptiste Grange of France, a slalom specialist. However, Grange missed a gate in the slalom and was disqualified, giving Miller the discipline title.
"Bode put on quite a clinic in the downhill," U.S. Head Coach Phil McNichol said. "He can be crafty and he really schooled everyone today. He gave up a lot of time to Kostelic in the slalom but he held on to win. He got it done. Our guys had trouble in the downhill - you can't afford to get outside the line and into the soft snow - and that was it."
McNichol was impressed by the snow-moving effort, which cleared the course. "It was a little soft for the slalom and there were some soft snow parts of the downhill, but Val d'Isere did an amazing job of moving tons of snow," he said.
The men have a slalom next Saturday in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, as they head into the final month of racing.
OFFICIAL RESULTS
2008 AUDI FIS ALPINE WORLD CUP
Val d'Isere, FRA - Feb. 3, 2008
Men's Super Combined (DH/1-run SL)
1. Bode Miller, Bretton Woods, NH, 28.45
2. Ivica Kostelic, Croatia, 2:18.82
3. Natdko Zrncic-Din, Croatia, 2:19.44
4. Rainer Schoenfelder, Austria, 2:19.54
5. Ales Gorza, Slovenia, 2:19.63
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22. Ted Ligety, Park City, UT, 2:21.86
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DNF-DH:
T.J. Lanning, Park City, UT; Andrew Weibrecht, Lake Placid, NY
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Miller Wins Super Combi, Clinches Title
