A 26 year old rank outsider, Italian Christof Innherofer has taken the World Skiing Championship Super Giant Slalom crown. In fact it was a day for the ‘lesser’ Super G racers on a very icy ‘Kandahar’ course, with the more highly ranked skiiers starting later, as usual, but failing to make a dent on the early leaders times.

It looked as if Hannes Reichelt’s very fast time was going to give him the top slot, but Innerhofer kept going faster and faster. 0.19 seconds up in the top section, 0.37 in the mid, and finishing 0.60 seconds quicker, in a time of 1:38:31. Taking the bronze medal, just edging out defending champion Didier Cuche, was Ivica Kostelic.

The podium places were taken by: A skier winning his first ever major (Innerhofer having only one World Cup victory to is name), a 30 yearold with no previous World Championship form (Reichelt), and a Slalom specialist who hated the fast icy conditions (Kostelic). All in all, it was probably a race which the bookies will hate!

The top four were: Christof Innerhofer (Ita)r, Hannes Reichelt (Aut), Ivica Kostelic (Cro), Didier Cuche (Sui)Both the Italy and Austria teams managed to place three of their racer in the top ten, in what most observers saw as an extremely good race weekend.

Innerhofer considered the conditions ideal for him. “It was a wonderful day, with perfect conditions for me because I like it icy and I thought to myself that this could be my chance,” Innerhofer told Eurosport.

To watch Innerfofer’s winning run click Here.

images: Eurosport