Music: {allcanada} MATT WINS WORLD CUP SLALOM RACE IN BULGARIA

Sunday, February 27, 2011

{allcanada} MATT WINS WORLD CUP SLALOM RACE IN BULGARIA

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BANSKO, Bulgaria -- Austrian veteran Mario Matt protected his lead from the first run to win a men's slalom race Sunday for his first World Cup victory in nearly two years.

Matt held a narrow lead over Reinfried Herbst after the first leg and clocked a time of one minute 50.35 seconds to hold off his fellow Austrian by 0.04 seconds.

"I can't describe how I feel, very happy, I guess," Matt said after his 13th career World Cup win. "After all those very tough competitions this year, I feel proud with what I did here. All through the second run I had a terrific feeling that this is my day."

Michael Janyk of Whistler, B.C., was the top Canadian in fifth place.

Matt is a two-time slalom world champion, but had not won a World Cup race since March 2009.

The Austrians had reason to celebrate in Bansko after their team's failure at the world championships. Defending slalom World Cup champion Herbst said he started the race without any expectations.

"I put too much pressure on myself and after the worlds I told myself another season was starting. I just tried to have fun and enjoy the sunshine here and it paid off," he said.

World champion Jean-Baptiste Grange of France climbed from seventh to third, finishing 0.48 back.

"I am a bit disappointed of my run because I did some minor mistakes. I feel a bit tired after Garmish Partenkirchen, but it's OK, I won some points today," Grange said.

World Cup overall and slalom leader Ivica Kostelic skied out in the first leg, failing to finish a slalom for the first time in more than a year. Germany's Felix Neureuther was fourth.

It was Janyk's third top-five finish in 2011, after a fourth-place result at Wengen and a fifth-place showing at Adelboden in January.

"I'm really, really happy with my skiing and my approach to the day," Janyk said. "The result is good and bad. It's awesome to be top five and so frustrating to be just off the podium.

"It's so clear in my mind what I need to do. I know I can be on the top of the podium."

American Nolan Kasper produced the best alpine World Cup result of his young career with a 10th-place finish, moving up from 16th after the first run.

"It was good, it was sunny and the snow was a lot better than I thought it would be," Kasper said.

"I had a better start than I've had in the past because I was in the top 30 for today. It was a pretty easy hill and course so you really had to be gunning from the get go. I just tried to make as little mistakes as possible and go fast."

His teammate, giant slalom world champion Ted Ligety, was 17th.

The men's tour now moves to Slovenia. Ligety has won the giant slalom in Kranjska Gora the last three consecutive seasons.