Janka takes downhill to claim World Cup ski lead

Switzerland's Carlo Janka won the men's World Cup finals downhill on Wednesday to take the lead in the overall standings in his ding dong battle for supremacy with Austria's Benjamin Raich.

Mario Scheiber of Austria finished second in the downhill on the Kandahar course in Garmisch, which hosts next year's world championships, with Canada's Erik Guay and Swiss Patrick Kueng joint third.

While compatriot Didier Cuche had already won the overall World Cup downhill title, 23-year-old Janka won here with a time of 1min 58.45sec having won a giant slalom gold at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Janka's victory gives him 100 points and puts him top of the overall World Cup standings on 1073 points with Austria's slalom-specialist Raich second on 1019 and Cuche third with 878.

"This victory is very important for me, I needed these points," admitted Janka with three races left here.

"It wasn't the best race, I put in a few good turns and that was the key to victory.

"I made a few mistakes in training and finished 15th, so I am really happy I corrected a few things.

"I feel good, I am not really feeling under pressure, I had the perfect season: when the big wins come it's ok, when they don't, I don't get angry."

And Janka said his battle with Raich, which will be decided over the next few days is good for the sport with the Austrian's prefered slalom event coming on Saturday.

"It is good that one of us is Swiss and the other Austrian, it creates a bit of rivalry and it will be a tight race over the next few days," said the Swiss.

"We will see at the end, it will be close until the slalom, I need more points in Super-G tomorrow and giant slalom."

Scheiber took second only 0.02sec off the pace while Guay flew the flag for Canada at 0.07sec adrift having only lost the lead on the final section of the Kandahar course and crossed the line in an identical time to Kueng.

With just 0.15sec separating the top seven, Cuche finished eighth at 0.19sec back and is also in contention for the overall title.

Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, who won a Super-G gold, downhill silver and giant slalom bronze in Vancouver, came in 12th at 0.78sec behind.

The men's Super-G is to come on Thursday with the giant slalom on Friday and the slalom - in which Raich is stronger than Janka - on Saturday.