Kostelic wins season's first World Cup slalom

Croatia's Ivica Kostelic captured the first slalom of the 2011-2012 World Cup alpine skiing season, beating out Cristian Deville of Italy on the Birds of Prey course Thursday. The reigning World Cup overall champion Kostelic won with a combined time of one minute 50.20sec to edge Deville by 0.14 seconds. Austria's Marcel Hirscher was third in 1:50.68. Kostelic won the overall title last season but then spent the off-season recovering from knee surgery. Hirscher led after the first run on Thursday with a time of 54.40. Hirscher won Sunday's giant slalom in Beaver Creek which added three races after World Cup officials moved the men's giant slalom and slalom and women's super-G to the Colorado ski resort because of a lack of snow in Val d'Isere, France. It was the first podium of his career for 30-year-old Deville, whose best previous finish at Beaver Creek was 11th in the slalom five years ago.