Rey-Bellet wins final super-G

Corinne Rey-Bellet on her way to victory on Friday Keystone

Switzerland's Corinne Rey-Bellet has won her first World Cup race of the season on the very last weekend of competition.

The 28-year-old athlete from canton Valais won Friday’s women’s super-G at the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden with a time of 1’09″52. Rey-Bellet was the first skier to make her way down the course after heavy fog had brought more than five hours of delay.

Rey-Bellet’s win marked the fourth World Cup victory of her career, following a downhill triumph in Altenmarkt last season and her incredible achievement in St Anton one year previously when she completed a super-G and downhill double on the same day.

The Swiss skier finished Friday’s race almost seven tenths of a second ahead of Canada’s Melanie Turgeon. A third place finish for Renate Cavagnoud was enough for the Frenchwoman to add the overall super-G title to her World Championship crown.

Rey-Bellet’s triumph continued a trend for late improvements among the Swiss women’s team. On Thursday Rey-Bellet’s compatriot Sylviane Berthod put in her best performance of the season by coming third in the women’s downhill.

Berthod was also in impressive form on Friday, finishing the super-G in fifth place.

Michael von Grünigen will be hoping to follow up on the women’s success when he resumes battle on Saturday with Austria’s Hermann Maier for the men’s overall giant slalom title.

Maier was confirmed as the overall super-G winner on Friday after the morning fog led to the cancellation of the men’s race. Although the Austrian was already guaranteed the discipline title, Friday’s annulment denied him the chance to break an historic record.

With 12 victories already this winter, Maier had been in line to break Ingmar Stenmark’s 1979 record of 13 wins in one season. He will now only be able to equal the record with a win in the giant slalom race.

swissinfo with agencies