Skiing: Walchhofer breaks Garmisch jinx

Michael Walchhofer skied a near-flawless run on the difficult Kandahar piste in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, to win the World Cup downhill race yesterday. He knocked the favourites, Hermann Maier and Bode Miller, into second and third place.

Walchhofer led his fellow Austrian ahead of the American Miller with a time of one minute 57.79sec, an improvement of 0.99sec on Maier's effort on one of the most challenging downhill courses in Alpine skiing.

"It was a very, very good run even if it wasn't quite perfect," said Walchhofer. "But I guess I shouldn't be complaining about anything if I was a whole second ahead of everyone else."

It was Walchhofer's second downhill win of the season after triumphing in Wengen last month. He also won a super-G in Val Gardena in December but had struggled in Garmisch in the past, crashing out in four of his last five races.

"It's great to break the jinx," Walchhofer said. "I was really charging and to win by almost a second is awesome."

Maier was looking for his 49th World Cup victory at the southern German resort where he won his first race in 1997. He dazzled the big crowd with an aggressive line down the hill, hitting top speeds of 130kmh (80mph) but lost to his younger compatriot. "Walchhofer was surprisingly good," Maier said.

Miller, the overall standings leader, made two mistakes that cost him dearly. He made a small error near the start but then negated that with a hard charge through the midsection of the 3,455-metre course that has a vertical drop of 960 metres.

Miller was 0.36sec in front of Maier but then made another mistake with his line near the finish, skiing wide and losing time. He ended up 0.14sec behind Maier before Walchhofer beat them both moments later.

"I made two significant mistakes that cost me second place," Miller said. "At the bottom I underestimated my speed and my ski got caught in a bit of soft snow. It's a very hard course. You're down in a crouch the whole way down."

"Walchhofer was tough to beat today," added Miller, who won the men's downhill at the Bormio world championships. "He had every part of the course down. He skied incredibly well."