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By Mark Ledsom
SOELDEN, Austria, Oct 23 - Austria's Hermann Maier
came from behind to grab the season-opening men's giant slalom
race on Sunday, edging out American Bode Miller by just 0.07
seconds.
Maier's Austrian team mate Rainer Schoenfelder finished
third, a further 0.11 seconds behind, to get on to a World Cup
giant slalom podium for the first time in his career.
Maier, trailing Miller by 0.72 seconds going into Sunday's
second run, blasted down the tricky Rettenbach glacier to post a
combined time of two minutes 17.60 seconds for his 51st World
Cup win.
Miller was able to stretch his first-run advantage to 0.95
seconds at the first split time but the defending overall World
Cup champion could not match Maier's impressive handling of the
course's lower sections.
"I'm pretty satisfied," Miller said. "Obviously I wanted to
win but 0.07 seconds is pretty little.
"There were a few mistakes at the end and I could feel the
speed going away so in that case second place feels pretty
great."
Maier's win made him the first man to win the season's
opening race on four occasions, following his triumphant start
to the 1999, 2000 and 2001 seasons.
The 32-year-old double Olympic champion and giant slalom
world champion prevented Miller from celebrating his own
hat-trick of season-opening wins.
The American was the winner of the last two Soelden races.