French skier wins Adelboden slalom race

Julien Lizeroux of France won the World Cup slalom race at the Swiss resort of Adelboden on Sunday, speeding through from 12th place after the first leg.

Swiss competitors Marc Gini and Silvan Zurbriggen finished sixth and tenth respectively in front of a home crowd.

Lizeroux had a combined time of 1 minute, 51.88 seconds after being 0.92 faster than any rival down the second run.

Austria’s Marcel Hirscher was second, 0.34 back, and Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic trailed by 0.80 seconds to take third.

Saturday’s giant slalom race at the resort in the Bernese Oberland was abandoned because of thick fog after 59 of 66 scheduled racers completed the first run.

The International Ski Federation called off the race after deciding the course would not be safe for the final seven skiers.

Elsewhere, in Val di Fiemme in Italy, defending champion Dario Cologna of Switzerland was third in the Tour de Ski behind Lukas Bauer of the Czech Republic and the Norwegian Petter Northug.

Swiss ski jumper and Olympic champion Simon Ammann finished fifth in the second jump event at Bad Mitterndorf in Austria. Rival and local boy Gregor Schlierenzauer won, meaning that he now leads the World Cup standings with 796 points to Ammann’s 794 points.

swissinfo.ch and agencies