Beaver Creek: Myhrer leads slalom, Ligety poised for podium; Miller skis out

Sweden’s Andre Myhrer had a wild but super-fast first run of slalom Sunday on the Birds of Prey course, leading a field of 70 racers with a time of 52.59 seconds. Germany’s Alois Vogl pushed into second, a whopping .57 back, but was later disqualified for straddling a gate, boosting American Ted Ligety, third in Saturday’s giant slalom, into second. Ligety rebroke his right hand in that GS after smacking it on a gate, and finished .78 behind Myhrer.
    With Vogl's DQ, Germany’s Felix Neureuther was third, followed by Austria’s Manfred Pranger and Canada’s Michael Janyk.

BEAVER CREEK, Colorado — Sweden’s Andre Myhrer had a wild but super-fast first run of slalom Sunday on the Birds of Prey course, leading a field of 70 racers with a time of 52.59 seconds. Germany’s Alois Vogl pushed into second, a whopping .57 back, but was later disqualified for straddling a gate, boosting American Ted Ligety, third in Saturday’s giant slalom, into second.
    Ligety rebroke his right hand in that GS after smacking it on a gate, and finished .78 behind Myhrer.“My hand hurt, but I was able to scramble,” Ligety said.
    With Vogl's DQ, Germany’s Felix Neureuther was third, followed by Austria’s Manfred Pranger and Canada’s Michael Janyk. American Bode Miller, the downhill winner on Friday, skied out midway through the first run after getting late in a turn where the course begins to flatten out. Jimmy Cochran tied for 29th to qualify for run No. 2.
    “I’m really far out today, and that’s tough. The only thing that’s saving me is a lot of people are going out,” Cochran said.
    Slalom stars Benni Raich of Austria and Giorgio Rocca of Italy did not survive the first run.
    The last time Miller finished a slalom was in January in Kitzbühel, Austria, where he finished 18th. Miller has not won a slalom since Dec. 13, 2004, in Sestriere, Italy.
    Slalom stars Benni Raich of Austria and Giorgio Rocca of Italy did not survive the first run. Raich, in fact, hooked the second gate in and was done immediately, cementing a dismal week here for the defending World Cup overall champion. The Austrians, in fact, have never failed to win a race during a Birds of Prey tour stop since the circuit began coming here in 1997. That streak will likely end Sunday. Raich was a DNF in the slalom portion of the combined Thursday, did not race in Friday’s downhill, and placed 11th in the GS.
    “This is a thing that shouldn’t happen but sometimes it just does," Raich said. "A similar thing happened in Wengen [Switzerland] last season, but I think I missed the third or fourth gate. Today it was only the second.”
    Defending World Cup slalom champion Rocca also straddled, though he got a little further down the course.
    “I was going from ice to snow and my skis gripped the snow,” said Rocca, who is returning from a knee injury. “I jerked forward and my ski hit the pole and then I was out.”
    Myhrer, 23, has two career World Cup podiums, in 2005 slaloms in Schladming and Kranjska Gora. In December 2004, he was fifth in a slalom on Birds of Prey.
    After Ligety's podium Saturday, U.S. men's coach Mike Morin said the Park City, Utah, racer is emerging as a legitimate all-around threat. “Sometimes when you see an athlete really develop in one discipline, their confidence carries over and they start to do things that they didn’t think was possible in their second discipline and their second discipline takes off too," Morin said. "Now Ted’s struggling with his hand a little bit and suddenly GS might be his strong discipline.
    “Ted’s going to be a threat in the slalom, GS and combined events week to week.”
    Some of the young Americans failed to qualify for the second run. Tom Rothrock, Roger Brown, Jake Zamansky and Tim Kelley did not finish run No. 1.
   Second run was set for 12:30 p.m.

— SR's Sam Flickinger and The Associated Press contributed to this report