Skiing: Lindh enjoys her first taste of World Cup success

HILARY LINDH, who won an Olympic silver medal two years ago but had never been in the top three in a World Cup race, came out of the 23rd start position yesterday to win the last downhill before the Lillehammer Olympics by one-hundredth of a second.

Melanie Suchet would have robbed her of her first victory but for a bad mistake in the closing metres. She was second in 2min 4.22sec with Italy's Isolde Kostner, the winner last week in the Garmisch downhill, was third.

Many of the favourites, stunned by the death of the Austrian Ulrike Maier in Garmisch last Saturday, stayed away. Kerrin Lee-Gartner, a friend of Maier, flew home to Canada on Monday instead of travelling to Spain and said she did not yet know if she would defend her Olympic downhill title in Lillehammer later this month.

The Austrian team, including Veronika Stallmaier who was third in the World Cup downhill standings before yesterday's race also stayed away.

The men were due to ski on the same Garmisch piste this weekend but their downhill was cancelled yesterday because the course was deemed too dangerous because of a shortage of snow. The slalom will go ahead on Sunday.

(Photograph omitted)