Mayer doubles up with super-G victory

Matthias Mayer gave Austrian fans something more to cheer about when he won Sunday's World Cup super-G in Saalbach, a day after leading a home clean sweep of the first three places in the downhill.
In foggy conditions, Mayer was 23 hundredths of a second ahead of Frenchman Adrien Theaux, with Norway's World Cup downhill leader Kjetil Jansrud four hundredths of a second further back in third.
"What an unforgettable weekend," Mayer beamed after his third World Cup victory eased him up one place to third in the super-G standings.
"It was filthy weather," he added, but said that in the conditions there was only one strategy that was going to win the race. "Going hell for leather at it, right to the limit," Mayer explained.
However, it was not such a memorable day for another Austrian, the recently-crowned world champion in the discipline, Hannes Reichelt, who was forced to abandon his run.
On Saturday, Olympic downhill champion Mayer was a mere two-hundredths of a second faster than Max Franz, with Reichelt third, 0.21sec slower than Mayer.
Mayer's winning weekend on home snow went some way towards making up for the Austrians' poor showing in the downhill at the recent world championships in Beaver Creek where Mayer was a disappointing 12th and Reichelt 13th.
It is the first time since 1999 that the ski circus has stopped in Saalbach, a resort on the edges of the Tyrol and Salzburg regions, which hosted the world championships back in 1991.
Source: AFP