4th medal for Benjamin Raich

Austria's Benjamin Raich won his second gold medal today in a difficult slalom, beating by 24/100 of a second his teammate Rainer Schoenfelder, the defending slalom World Cup Champion, while Italy's Giorgio Rocca is a happy and a lucky 3rd at 74/100.

The Tyrolian, who turns 27 at the end of the month, has dominated these 2005 World Championships capturing a total of four medals in the four races he entered! He also clinched gold in the combined last week, silver in giant slalom and bronze in Super-G on the first day of competition. Only Norway's Lasse Kjus did better in recent years with five medals at the 1999 Worlds in Vail/Beaver Creek.

Benjamin, 2nd in slalom at the 2001 World Championships in St Anton, and 3rd at the 2002 Olympics after the disqualification of Great Britain's Alain Baxter, is since the late 1990's one of the best slalom specialists on the World Cup tour. In 2002, he won the slalom World Cup title after five victories, three
of them in January in Wengen, Kitzbuehel and Schladming. He has won a total of 15 World Cup events in his career, including a combined in Wengen this year.

This year, the “Blitz from Pitz” started the season with an impressive win in Beaver Creek. A series of top-3 finishes allow him to strongly lead the standings with only two slaloms to go, in Kranjska Gora and at the Finals in Lenzerheide.

A relaxed leader in the first run with a an advance of 12/100 on his teammate Manfred Pranger, the superb winner in Kitzbuehel and Schladming, Raich perfectly handled the pressure in the second run to remain out of reach of Schoenfelder who took all risks to move-up in the standings after clocking the 4th best time in the morning.

“It was a nice slalom race, very difficult too,” he said at the TV stations afterward. “I felt confident and I skied the way I wanted. This is a wonderful victory because slalom has always been my best event. I was aiming for gold this morning.”

In 2001, Benjamin was also leading the first run in St Anton, but at the end, he was passed by Mario Matt, losing the gold medal by only a few hundredths of a second. It was a tough defeat for the Austrian “Sunnyboy” who needed a long time afterwards to get his first World title.

Rocca, who didn't ski as aggressively as usual in the second run, was more than lucky that Miller and then Pranger skied out while taking great risks. “I didn't ski as well as I hoped, the course was tough, but I'm happy with this second bronze medal,” he said. “It's an important result for me, the team and all my fans who came from Livigno to encourage me.”

In Sunday's team event, the Squadra Azzurra wil aim for another spot on the podium next to the Austrian and the US Ski Team, the favorites for this new and exciting competition.


Patrick Lang