Men's Super G
Hermann Maier, in his 10th victory of the season, won the last super G by nearly two seconds ahead of his teammate, Fritz Strobl, for the biggest winning margin in any super G race in the history World Cup ski racing. With this win, he also achieved his goal of breaking 2000 total points in the year 2000.

	Maier Reaches 2000

After conquering the downhill World Cup title with a controlled run yesterday, Maier took every risk in this super G race, motivated by three consecutive super G defeats in St. Anton and Kvitfjell.

"My mother celebrated her birthday yesterday evening," Maier said after his win, "and I already dedicated my downhill title victory to her, but I wanted to win this last super G of the season after my recent disappointing performances."

As for reaching 2000 overall points, Maier says it's not over yet. "I absolutely wanted to reach this limit of 2000 points before the giant slalom on Saturday in order to leave my personal mark," he said. "It's a fabulous score — I remember how happy I was to pass the 400 points limit in 1997, and this year I reached five times as much; it's fantastic. I impressed myself."

"I remember how happy I was to pass the 400 points limit in 1997, and this year I reached five times as much..." — Hermann Maier (AUT)

This season, Maier has reached more than he ever imagined. "Now I will try to have fun in the giant slalom on Saturday — that's the greatest way to perform at my best level. After that I'll take a nice, long holiday in the sun. I think I really deserve it."

In this last speed race of the season, the Austrians again demonstrated their power, putting four athletes on the podium — and also the top three positions in the cumulative super G standings. Maier finished ahead of teammates Werner Franz and Fritz Strobl, who tied for first place in St. Anton in February.

In this last super G, Strobl was 2nd at 1.91 seconds back, while fellow Austrians Werner Franz and Andreas Schifferer tied for 3rd at 1.98 behind. Sweden's Frederik Nyberg finished 5th behind the Austrian pack, just ahead of American Daron Rahlves.

	Kiss the Cups

Rahlves had the potential to crack into the Austrian bunch, but he hit a gate with his right hand and lost a pole.

"It was a wild run today and I was aiming for more," Rahlves said. "I was having a great time, but after I lost my pole, it was difficult to keep my balance in the lower part. I was no longer as focused, and I lost more time than I should have. I was surprised to clock such a good time with a handicap. I was off the rhythm at the bottom. I didn't feel like I had everything I needed today."

However, the Californian is getting closer to his goal of entering the top-15 in the overall World Cup standings.

"I'm top-10 in both speed events now and this is already a nice goal to have reached. Now I have to put everything together during summer training. I want to start strong in North America in front of my home crowd and remain healthy until the 2002 Winter Games," Rahlves added.

This is his Rahlves' fifth consecutive top-10 finish. He is now in 18th place, 43 points behind 15th place. He has a chance to improve his ranking Saturday in the last giant slalom.

— Patrick Lang, MountainZone.com European Correspondent