Rey-Bellet fourth in final downhill
Swiss skier Corinne Rey-Bellet has finished the last women's downhill race of the season in fourth place to leap up to third place overall in the final downhill standings.
Wednesday’s race in the Austrian resort of Altenmarkt saw the 29-year-old from canton Valais narrowly miss out on the podium after finishing just 18 hundredths of a second behind third placed Frenchwoman Melanie Suchet.
“I had the shivers,” Rey-Bellet laughed after learning of her final ranking position. “I didn’t have any expectations and reaching the top three certainly wasn’t one of my aims. My heart is glowing.”
Despite missing out on what would have been her 15th World Cup podium place, Rey-Bellet can certainly look back on a solid finish to the year.
Having narrowly missed out on an Olympic medal with her fifth place finish in the Salt Lake City downhill, Rey-Bellet bounced back on home snow last weekend by winning the Lenzerheide downhill – the fifth World Cup victory of her career.
Her latest fourth place finish earned Rey-Bellet enough points to scrape into the overall downhill top three, finishing the season just two points ahead of fourth placed German skier Hilde Gerg.
Home favourite Michaela Dorfmeister won the Altenmarkt race, ahead of America’s Caroline Lalive, to assure the Austrian of the overall women’s World Cup title. Italy’s Isolde Kostner had already made sure of the downhill title.
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