TORINO: Alpine: Austrians tab Raich, not Walchhofer, for final SG spot

By Published On: February 16th, 2006Comments Off on TORINO: Alpine: Austrians tab Raich, not Walchhofer, for final SG spot

TORINO: Alpine: Austrians tab Raich, not Walchhofer, for final SG spotSESTRIERE, Italy – Olympic downhill silver medalist Michael Walchhofer headed home after Austria left him off its four-man squad for Saturday’s super G.

Walchhofer, who won silver in the super G at the 2005 World Championships, was bypassed for the team’s final berth in favor of overall World Cup leader Benjamin Raich. Walchhofer later left Italy, Austria team spokesman Robert Brunner said.

“I am very happy the coaches decided to pick me,” Raich said Thursday. “Of course for Michey it’s not so fun.”

Walchhofer won silver in Sunday’s downhill, then skied off course during the first slalom run of Tuesday’s combined.

“I was disappointed after the combined and a bit down so this was good news for me,” added Raich, who was in position to win Tuesday’s combined event before straddling a gate.

Austria’s super G team also includes Hermann Maier, Hannes Reichelt and Christoph Gruber.

Maier leads the World Cup super G standings, while Reichelt is third. Gruber won the most recent super G on the circuit.

Raich is the overall World Cup leader but hasn’t cracked the top 15 in a super G race since the first event of the season.

“It’s always difficult to make a decision like this,” Austria men’s head coach Toni Giger said. “Both Benni and Michael were on the podium in super G at the World Championships in Bormio last year. But both haven’t had the best season in super G so far.”

Giger said the decisive factor was that in Raich’s best super G performance of the season — a second place in Lake Louise, Alberta — he was only seven hundredths of a second behind the winning time.

Walchhofer has been more consistent in the super G this season, but in his best performance — a sixth-place finish in the last World Cup super G in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany — he was 0.98 behind the winner.

The team also announced that Raich, Reinfried Herbst and Rainer Schoenfelder have secured berths on Austria’s slalom squad.

Coaches said Manfred Pranger and Mario Matt will fight it out in a series of time trials on Tuesday for the fourth spot on the team.

Matt’s best slalom result this season was a fourth-place finish in Beaver Creek, Colorado, last December. Pranger’s was an eighth-place finish in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, later that month.

– The Associated Press

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