Austrian, Benjamin Raich took the Val d’Isere Super Combined on the demanding, and extremely icy, Face Bellevarde course this Friday. He finished with a combined time of 2minutes 7.71seconds, which was 0.89 seconds ahead of fellow Austrian, Marcel Hirscher. The Austrian team have lagged behind Switzerland in recent years, this result will give a further boost to their 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic hopes.

Following earlier criticism of some current ski design, it came as no surprise that a few high profile competitors crashed out. The current World Cup leader, Carl Janka (Switzerland) looked to improve on his second place in the Super G, but crashed out. After three World Cup wins he was hoping to become the first man since the great Hermann Maier  to take four consecutive World Cup wins. Olympic Combined Champion at Turin 2006,  Ted Legety (USA), was over a second ahead when he too succumbed to the tricky course.

Raich raised his game after lying fourth in the Super G portion of the Combined to take the thirty fifth win of his career so far. After Hirscher, Manfred Moelegg (Italy) and Romed Bauman (another Austrian) tied for third place, 1.55 seconds further back.

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