Hirscher leads Austria to Val d'Isere cleansweep

Hirscher's maiden win on the World Cup circuit followed that of team-mates Benjamin Raich and Michael Walchhofer in the super-combined and super-G also held on the Face de Bellevarde piste on Friday and Saturday respectively.

The performance by the Austrian team dispelled worries that it might suffer another nightmare weekend courtesy of their Carlo Janka-led Swiss rivals, who failed even to make a podium here.

The 20-year-old Hirscher, who was second in the super-combined behind Raich, posted the fastest run in the first leg and then completed the job with a fine display of attacking skiing on the second run down the testing course.

Hirscher timed a total of 2min 16.28sec, a massive 0.77sec ahead of Italian Massimiliano Blardone, with Raich a further 0.55sec adrift.

Raich's third-placed finish saw him leap-frog Janka into top spot of the World Cup overall standings on 486 points, 26 ahead of the Swiss skier.

"I can't believe I won, it's going to take me two or three days to get my head around it," said Hirscher, who admitted on Friday that Raich had been his childhood idol.

"It's so tough to ski in Val d'Isere but to win and get congrats from Benny is unbelievable.

"You have to focus and fight every gate. I was initially very nervous, but those nerves disappeared the closer it got for me to go.

"I always push as hard as possible and I try to risk more than 100 percent on each race. Today I was lucky and I'm the best."

Raich hailed his team-mate, predicting that he had a "lot more to achieve and will go very far".

"He'll be a top champion," said Raich. "He doesn't care, he just goes for it, but he's a winner.

"It's good to have team-mates like Marcel around. I'm very impressed with him. He had a perfect second run."

Raich added that the Austrian team's domination of the three podiums was good news.

"We knew we'd be back but you never know how long it takes. It's just important to keep your cool."

Blardone said that although he had taken a large lead over Raich, he had not been confident that Hirscher, who missed out on world bronze on the same slope in February by just 0.07sec, wouldn't produce the goods.

"I had a big lead over Benny but Marcel came through: he just had more to give. He'll be tough to beat in the future, I can promise you that."

The first leg of the giant slalom, in which skiers have to pass through a series of 50 gates not as close to each other as the slalom but not as displaced as the Super-G, saw Janka continue his rotten form by again crashing out.

Janka span nastily after clipping a gate about a third of the way down the course in bright sunshine that left him nursing a gash on his right cheek.

The 23-year-old Swiss racer, who notched up a hat-trick of wins in Beaver Creek last weekend, also failed to finish the super-combined and super-G here.

Janko's team-mates Didier Cuche, reigning World Cup giant slalom champion, and Didier Defago did not rate any better, the former not even starting because of an injury and the latter also crashing out.