Andrej Miklavc of Slovenia came out of the pack Sunday for his first World Cup victory with a hard-charging second run that helped him overcome a deficit of more than a second.
The victory capped an impressive day for the Slovenian team, which had three skiers in the top six.For Miklavc, a member of the World Cup circuit since 1987, the win capped a comeback from ligament surgery on his right knee last year that led to a five-month layoff.
"I had a lot of time to think about my skiing and my career," he said. "I knew I did not have a bad problem as a technical skier. I had a problem in my head."
Those problems vanished Sunday as the 25-year-old benefited from a building snowstorm.
The skies were overcast during the slalom's first run, but snow started falling shortly before the second run got under way.
Miklavc, the third skier on the course for the second run, avoided the heavier snow and subsequent rutting that later skiers encountered and finished with a combined two-run time of 1 minute 38.72 seconds.
The Slovenian had started the day seeded 19th, but stood 13th after the first run. Also coming out of the field was Austria's Christian Mayer, the 21st seed who followed Miklavc down the second run and finished second by just one-hundredth of a second.
Mayer, who joked that a pretty girl distracted him at the top of the course and cost him the victory, had no immediate complaints about his finish.
"At first I am very glad with the result," he said. "I have to look at the video. At home I think I'll get very angry at him (Miklavc)."
Both Miklavc and Mayer attributed their performances to their high start numbers for the second run.
"I got a perfect start number for these kind of conditions," said Miklavc. "I knew that the course was wet and it would be rough."
Italy's Fabio De Crignis took third in a combined 1:38.84, while the first-run leader, France's Sebastien Amiez, finished fourth in 1:38.95.
During the first run the icy Clementine course claimed Austria's Michael Tritscher, who had won the season-opening slalom a week earlier, and Italy's Alberto Tomba, who has been unable to resurrect his dominating form of a year ago.
The best finish for America came from Matt Grosjean, who finished 13th with a time of 1:41.76.