Svindal doubles up with super-G win

LAKE LOUISE, Canada (AFP) –

Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal skis to victory in the men’s Alpine Skiing World Cup SuperG in Lake Louise. Svindal completed a Lake Louise double on Sunday, winning the first super-G of the men’s alpine World Cup season a day after capturing the downhill.

Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal completed a Lake Louise double on Sunday, winning the first super-G of the men’s alpine World Cup season a day after capturing the opening downhill.

France’s Adrien Theaux was second and Austria’s Joachim Puchner third.

Svindal’s downhill triumph on Saturday was his first at Lake Louise, but he claimed his fourth super-G victory at the resort in the Canadian Rockies to go with those he earned in 2005, 2007 and last year.

He clocked 1min 34.96sec to finish 85-hundredths of a second in front of Theaux, the first Frenchman to claim a World Cup podium place this season, and 90-hundredths of a second in front of Puchner.

“Obviously this weekend I skied very well. I was very, very aggressive. I attacked everything,” said Svindal, a treble medallist at the 2010 Winter Olympics who notched the 18th World Cup win of his career.

“Even today in the super-G I went for a straight line in the parts where I could. And my skis were running very fast. One thing is gliding, but they were also really fast in the turns.”

Svindal joined American Bode Miller and Austrian Stephan Eberharter as the only men to complete a downhill-super-G double at Lake Louise since it became a regular stop on the World Cup circuit in 1999.

Miller accomplished the feat in 2004 while Eberharter did it in 2002.

Svindal, who will be 30 in December, said winning never gets old.

“I’m competitive. I like competing,” he said. “When you’re in the start gate you’re nervous and it’s stressful in many ways, but I enjoy those feelings.

“For me it’s the actual race, it’s passing the finish line and being ahead, seeing your name on top of the board — that’s the moment right there.”