Austrian Raich Makes It Back To Back Qins

`My victory in Beaver Creek gave me a lot of confidence back,` Raich told reporters.

Austria's Benjamin Raich underlined his return to form by winning a super-combined on Friday, his second World Cup victory in succession.

Inconsistent for most of last season, the 30-year-old Olympic slalom champion had not won back-to-back World Cup races for almost seven years.

Raich was first in a giant slalom in Beaver Creek last Sunday and this super-combined replaced the one called off at the American resort.

His 32nd victory came in a combined time of two minutes and 2.48 seconds, Raich frustrating French fans by beating local favourite Jean-Baptiste Grange by 0.34 seconds.

Austrian Marcel Hirscher was third, 0.69 seconds adrift of the winner.

"My victory in Beaver Creek gave me a lot of confidence back," Raich told reporters. "It took the pressure off and I was really cool today.

"It was an extremely difficult race. It was almost impossible not to make a mistake on this course and yet I managed to win."

Grange acknowledged that he did not produce his best performance.

"I really wanted to do something good in front of my home crowd," he said.

GRANGE LUCK

"My family and my fans were here but I had a lot of luck in both legs as I came really close to catastrophe."

Raich's consistency was the key on the steep and dark Face de Bellevarde piste which will host the world championships in February.

The morning super-G had been merciless to arguably the three best all-rounders on the circuit, World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway, World Cup holder Bode Miller and Swiss Didier Cuche crashing out of contention.

American Miller has now failed to finish four of his last five World Cup races and cannot afford to lose more ground in the giant slalom and slalom which complete the weekend programme here.

In the afternoon, 11 skiers missed a gate or crashed out, including American Ted Ligety, Croatian Ivica Kostelic and Swiss Daniel Albrecht.

The win lifted Raich to second in the World Cup overall standings on 293 points, behind Svindal (345).