Kaheka blog

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (AFP) – Austria's Elisabeth Goergl won the women's world super-G title on Tuesday, but defending champion Lindsey Vonn finished a disappointing seventh and reigning Olympic champion Andrea Fischbacher crashed out.

Goergl's winning time of 1min 23.82sec down the icy Kandahar course just edged American Julia Mancuso, 0.05sec off the pace, with local favourite Maria Riesch claiming bronze at 0.21sec.

In-form Swiss teenager Lara Gut finished just out of the medals in fourth at 0.44sec.

The super-G crown is the first major title for the 29-year-old Goergl, who won bronze medals in the downhill and giant slalom at last year's Winter Olympics and claimed a super combined bronze at the 2009 world championships.

"I wasn't nervous at all at the start," said Goergl.

"I had a good run, I did what I had planned to do. The conditions were in my favour in this case."

The eagerly anticipated clash between world champion Vonn, who has dominated women's skiing in the last three years, and Garmisch-born World Cup leader Riesch never materialised as both failed to cope as well as Goergl with the icy slopes.

Having suffered a head injury last week in training, Vonn lost time to Goergl from the first split time and never recovered to finish well down the pecking order, at 0.84sec.

She admitted she was not at her best and may skip Friday's super combined to give herself more time to recover.

"Seventh place is good, but I want to defend my title and I can't do that if it's too dangerous for me and I shouldn't do it," said Vonn.

"But this is the world championships and I tried to do it, but unfortunately things are not going well at the moment.

"I need to see if I can be fit again for the downhill, maybe I'll skip the super combined, I don't really know.

"I still need to talk to the therapists and the doctors because I have to be honest, that wasn't me out there."

She added: "It's not hard to see who was the best, they really deserved it and I'm just disappointed I wasn't quite with it today, my head wasn't in it.

"That was the biggest disappointment for me, I didn't get the chance to give my best, but that's the way it is and the winner, Lizzy, was really great."

Fischbacher suffered a heavy crash after her skies flipped sideways and she slid for several hundred metres at high speeds before the crash barriers caught her. She later skied down.

"I don't really know what happened," said the 25-year-old. "I just thought a bit too much.

"I wanted to turn, but then I started with the turn 10 metres too early and caught the gate."

Slovenia's Tina Maze, Olympic silver medallist in the discipline a year ago, immediately lost time at the top part of the course and finished 11th, while Sweden's Anja Paerson was 10th. Both finished more than a second behind the winner.

The fortnight-long world championships continue on Wednesday with the men's super-G.