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	Sabine Egger (AUT)

Three years after their last success in that speciality, the Austrian team celebrated a double win in the sixth slalom race of the season held by very difficult weather conditions in Germany's Berchtesgaden. Sabine Egger beat by a mere 1/100 of a second her teammate Ingrid Salvenmoser and by 12/100 Sweden's Pernilla Wiberg to celebrate her very first World Cup victory. Slovenia's Spela Pretnar, 13th in the first run improved her ranking to finish 4th as in Semmering two weeks ago.She was the second fastest skier in the second run. Claudia Riegler from New Zealand achieved an impressive performance too, coming 5th after being only 29th in the first leg.In the second run, she clocked by far the best time, almost two seconds better than Egger. It's her best result since she came 3rd at Park City in November 1997. Ironically it happened two days after her boy friend, Thomas Sykora, injured himself badly at a knee in Kranjska Gora.

America's Kristina Koznick, moved down from 5th to 7th place. Other favorites too had a hard time to handle the poor visibility and the bad racing conditions: Australia's Zali Steggall only came 20th at 2.04 seconds while Janica Kostelic, 3rd in Park City in November was a far 24th. The 40th succes of an Austrian skier in a World Cup slalom was expected since the season start. Both Egger and Salvenmoser already finished on the podium in north america and Sabine clocked the fastest time in the first run in Mammoth Mountain before finishing 4th. Yet they proved to have strong nerves and a great motivation during their second run while they fought their way down the slopes in the middle of thick fog. "I was ready to take all risks today to finally win my first race" said Egger afterwards. "I had enough of top-3 places - I wanted to reach the top and I didn't lose my concentration at the start. I knew that the conditions were difficult but I gave what I had in me". It's the 10th season's win for the Austrian skiers who have done well in all events so far. Salvenmoser, who will turn 32 in March and who competes for more than ten years on the World Cup tour, was not too disappointed to miss once more her first success. It's her sixth top-3 finish in her career."The trainers put some pressure on me during the past weeks and it was important to me to achieve another strong peformance before the World Championships" she said.

Pernilla Wiberg reinforced her commanding position in the slalom World Cup ranking in front of Egger. She will be aiming for another gold medal in that specialty at Vail.

The women have a short night before the next race, a giant slalom, planned for Saturday morning. Alexandra Meissnitzer 2nd and 3rd in the last two competitions, will try to come back and beat the veteran Anita Wachter, out of reach in Semmering and Maribor. Switzerland's Sonja Nef, Norway's Andrine Flemmen and Pretnar too will aim for a spot on the podium.

In the same time, the men's will compete in a Super-G on the demanding "Planai" course in Schladming. The skier to beat is of course "The Herminator" , Hermann Maier, unbeaten in Austria in 1998. He won this competition last year. On Sunday he will face one of his toughest challenge ever in his home-town in Flachau where a GS race in scheduled.

— Mountain Zone European Ski Correspondent