DPA
Berlin
Norway’s Fredrik Moeller claimed a first World Cup victory in a Super-G on Sunday in Italy which was overshadowed by another big crash on the Bormio piste.
Swiss skier Gino Caviezel was taken away by helicopter after falling heavily on the Stelvio course with bib number one.
National federation Swiss Ski said in the evening that Caviezel was flown directly back to Switzerland, that he dislocated his shoulder and suffered “a complex knee injury which is being further examined.” Moeller, 24, had come fourth in the first two season races in the discipline before reaching the top of the podium for the first time, two-tenths of a second ahead of Austrian former world championn Vincent Kriechmayr.
Saturday’s downhill winner Alexis Monney of Switzerland made the podium again in third, another four-hundredths back.
Swiss superstar and World Cup leader Marco Odermatt had to be content with fifth like in the downhill.
“This is what I’ve been training for most of my life, it would mean everything,” Moeller told Austrian broadcasters ORF before the race was completed.
“I managed to ski as well as I could. I had a few small mistakes, but they didn’t affect the time that much.”
Before Caviezel’s crash the Bormio days had already seen three heavy falls in downhill training on Friday.
Frenchman Cyprien Sarrazin was in a stable condition after undergoing surgery to decompress an intra-cranial haematoma. Italy’s Pietro Zazzi fractured the tibia and fibula of his right leg, and Swiss Josua Mettler tore the anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and medial meniscus in both knees.
The men’s World Cup continues with a slalom on January 8 in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy.
