BORMIO, Italy -- Austria's Benjamin Raich
and America's Bode Miller resume their World Cup rivalry this
week having reasserted their reputations as the world's top
Alpine skiers.
At the Bormio world championships, which ended Sunday,
Raich and Miller shared four of the five individual gold medals,
with Hermann Maier's impressive triumph in the giant slalom
providing the only intermission to the two-man show.
At first it had seemed that the championships might even
have turned into a solo act, with Miller taking two of the first
three gold medals, winning the opening super-G before becoming
the first American to win the prestigious men's downhill.
Miller, a 27-year-old from New Hampshire, even grabbed the
headlines after failing to finish the combined event. He lost a
ski 15 seconds into his run but carried on regardless, to the
delight of the crowd and the annoyance of United States head
coach Phil McNichol.
"That's not worth ending your season for," McNichol said.
"He wasn't even in contention at the first split (time), so I
don't care how big his cape is."
It was Raich, the overshadowed winner of that
combined race, who in fact ended up as the championships' Superman.
Outperforming Miller when it came to consistency, the
Austrian took a further gold in the final weekend's slalom race,
having earlier picked up a silver in giant slalom and a bronze
in the super-G -- completing a haul of four individual medals
from four starts.
By also helping Austria to take silver in Sunday's inaugural
Nations team event, Raich finished with a total of five medals
from one championships -- becoming only the second man, after
Norway's Lasse Kjus, to achieve the feat.
"It's not my goal to be making headlines," Raich insisted.
"I really don't know what being a star or a superstar means, but
after my performances here I suppose I'll just have to live with
labels like that."
One Austrian well used to star status is Maier, who
completed a stunning career comeback to win the giant slalom
title.
Maier, 32, a former double Olympic champion who came
close to losing a leg in a motorcycle crash in 2001, shook off
disappointment in the super-G and downhill events to edge Raich
into second place.
"Having a gold medal around my neck was something I focused
on when I was lying in the hospital," Maier said. "It was
probably a gold medal at the Olympics that I was actually
imagining, but coming back to win at a major event was certainly
a trick I used to keep myself going."
Austrians live up to expectations
The Austrians lived up to their billing as pre-championship
favorites, with Michael Walchhofer taking a silver in the
super-G and a bronze in downhill, and Rainer Schoenfelder
finally proving himself with a silver medal in the slalom.
Daron Rahlves demonstrated that the Americans are not a
one-man team -- coming second behind Miller in the downhill
before taking a bronze in the giant slalom -- while Italy's
Giorgio Rocca gave the home fans plenty to cheer with bronze
medals in the slalom and the combined.
There was a change of the guard in the Norwegian team with
Lasse Kjus and Kjetil Andre Aamodt going home empty-handed for
the first time in eight successive world championships.
Aamodt, 33, had looked on course for a silver medal in the
combined, which would have added a 13th world championship medal
to his record haul, but was disqualified after
video replays showed him straddling a gate during the final
slalom run.
Aamodt's loss was Aksel Lund Svindal's gain, with the
promising 22-year-old Norwegian taking the silver in place of
his compatriot.
"It's great to see Aksel on the podium, we've got a good
young skier there," said Aamodt. "Now me and Lasse can look
forward to retiring (after next year's Winter Olympics), sitting
on the couch and watching Aksel on the television for a change."
Several teams left disappointed.
Canada and Germany had both hoped for a medal or two in the
individual events following some impressive World Cup
performances this season, although Germany had the compensation
of winning gold in the team event.
There was no such consolation for Switzerland. They sank to
new depths, finishing the championships without a medal for the
first time since 1966.
There will be little time for either the winners to bask in their
glory or for the losers to turn things around, as the men now
head to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany to train for the
resumption of the World Cup on Friday.