The Men's Alpine Skiing World Cup is this weekend in Kitzbühel, Austria. The racing action at the traditional Hahnenkamm races started on Friday with the super-G race. That was also the speed leg of the alpine combined that was completed with the slalom leg in the afternoon.

World Cup leader Svindal celebrates in Super-G

The super-G course showed its difficulty already for the first two starters; Patrick Schwaiger and Erik Guay went off the course at a jump following a long right-hand turn at the third gate.

Starting with the bib No. 7, Mattia Casse, the quickest of Thursday’s downhill training on the same slope, claimed the lead. His countryman Christof Innerhofer with the bib No. 9 was able to beat Casse’s time by 0.02 seconds, giving Italy a 1-2 lead.

The Italian party continued when the top group started from the bib No. 16. Last year’s Kitzbühel super-G winner Dominik Paris made a mistake at the top of the slope and was trailing Innerhofer by 0.58 seconds; however, with clean skiing after that, he was able to claim the lead by 0.11 seconds.

The mistake at the top was still costly for Paris. Starting after him, Andrew Weibrecht of the USA beat Paris’s time by 0.41 seconds. The mistake of Paris was clearly visible in the split times; at the third split Weibrecht was already 0.88 seconds ahead but couldn’t match Paris’s great finish.

Adrien Théaux of France was one of the favorites for the race but the difficult right-hand turn also ended his race. After him started the super-G and overall World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal. The Norwegian slowly built a gap to Weibrecht and, despite not having a perfect final section, he claimed the lead by 0.31 seconds.

Two more skiers of the top group remained, Hannes Reichelt of Austria and Kjetil Jansrud of Norway. Neither of those could beat the times of Svindal and Weibrecht. Reichelt went into third place, 0.42 seconds from Svindal, and Jansrud went into fourth place, 0.53 seconds from Svindal.

No major changes happened after the top group of skiers. The super-G World Cup leader Svindal claimed his second win in Kitzbühel, both in super-G. The 2010 super-G Olympic bronze and 2014 silver medalist Weibrecht achieved his career-best World Cup result with the second place finish and is now second in the super-G World Cup, 120 points from Svindal. The defending champion Jansrud is in third place of the super-G standings, 144 points from Svindal.

Weibrecht’s second place finish was also some happy news for the American ski team, a day after Bill Johnson, the first American male Olympic gold medalist in alpine skiing, passed away at the age of 55.

Pinturault wins third Kitzbühel combined in a row

Photo: Alexis Boichard/Agence Zoom/Getty Images Europe

The super-G race was also the speed leg of the alpine combined. The last two year’s combined winner in Kitzbühel, Alexis Pinturault of France was 13th of the super-G race; however, his position in the combined standings was 10th as Weibrecht, Reichelt and the 11th-placed Manuel Osborne-Paradis weren’t on the start list for the combined. His gap to the leader Aksel Lund Svindal was 1.22 seconds, something he would be capable of catching in the slalom leg.

Last year’s runner-up Marcel Hirscher seemed like Pinturault’s biggest challenger in the combined. The Austrian was 23rd of the super-G, however 16th of the combined skiers. The gap of 1.90 seconds to Svindal and 0.68 seconds to Pinturault was still possible for him to catch if he could have a perfect slalom run.

USA’s Ted Ligety was also among the favorites for the combined. However, his race ended in the super-G leg. He missed the line after the final jump and couldn’t turn into the final gates. His time at the final split was 29th-quickest, so he might not have had a chance for the win in the combined anyway.

34th in the super-G (21st of combined skiers), Adam Žampa of Slovakia had a brilliant slalom run and claimed the lead in the combined race. His lead was short-lived; the Frenchman Victor Muffat-Jeandet (30th in super-G/19th in combined skiers) extended his lead over Žampa by four hundredths to claim the lead by 0.19 seconds.

Muffat-Jeandet and Žampa were still the top two when it was time for Marcel Hirscher's slalom run. Hirscher seemed to have set the quickest run of the slalom leg, crossing the finish line 1.33 seconds ahead of Muffat-Jeandet. However, Hirscher had straddled a gate and got disqualified. That was a costly mistake by Hirscher; without it his time would've been good enough to win and score 100 points. Instead he recieved no points for his overall title defense.

18th in the super-G (12th of the combined skiers), Thomas Mermillod-Blondin had an advantage of 0.47 seconds to Muffat-Jeandet after the super-G leg. That wasn't quite enough to stay ahead; he went into second place, just 0.03 seconds behind his countryman.

Alexis Pinturault was the first man to go below Muffat-Jeandet's combined time. Pinturault lost one hundredth of his advantage in the slalom leg, still claiming the lead by 0.89 seconds and giving France a 1-2-3 lead.

A good combined skier, Carlo Janka of Switzerland, was ninth in the super-G (seventh of the combined skiers). The lead of 0.27 seconds to Pinturault after the super-G leg wasn't enough for Janka but he went into fourth place, exactly a second from lead. At this point Adam Žampa was still in fifth place.

The top five was still the same when only Kjetil Jansrud and Aksel Lund Svindal of the 30 best super-G skiers were remaining. The Norwegian duo couldn't repeat the previous weekend's 1-2 win of Wengen. Jansrud had a run full of mistakes and went into 13th place. Svindal straddled a gate early in his run and couldn't finish the race.

The skiers outside the super-G leg's top 30 were still remaining after Svindal's run, however, no major changes happened in the standings. France achieved a 1-2-3 win, led by Alexis Pinturault who achieved his third consecutive Kitzbühel combined victory.

The super-G World Cup champion will again receive a small crystal globe this season. With one more combined race remaining, Pinturault and Jansrud share the lead at 120 points, followed by Mermillod-Blondin 10 points behind.

In the overall standings, Aksel Lund Svindal extended his lead over Marcel Hirscher by 92 points in Friday's races and leads now by 107 points. Henrik Kristoffersen, who didn't race on Friday, is in third place, 245 points from Svindal. Last season's runner-up Kjetil Jansrud caught Kristoffersen by 70 points, trailing him by 68 points.

The weekend in Kitzbühel continues with the Hahnenkamm downhill on Saturday at 11:45 AM local time (5:45 AM Eastern time). A preview for the downhill can be found here.