Alpine: Weirather and Jansrud celebrate Super-G titles

(Reuters) - Liechtenstein's Tina Weirather scored a dramatic win in the final Super-G race of the season to snatch the alpine World Cup discipline title from Slovenia's Ilka Stuhec on Thursday. The day began with the crown up for grabs with Stuhec, winner of Wednesday's downhill, sitting atop the standings but Weirather lurking 15 points back and 100 on offer for a win. Stuhec's lead, however, only lasted as long as it took Weirather to get to the bottom of the Aspen course. The fifth skier out of the start hut, Weirather shot to the top of the leaderboard with a time of one minute, 11.66 seconds to put the pressure squarely on her Slovenian rival's shoulders. Two skiers later, Stuhec was on the course but could not knock Weirather from top spot, settling instead for second in 1:12.01, just 0.01 seconds ahead of Italy's Federica Brignone. By collecting the 100 points, Weirather boosted her season total to 435 and claimed the Super G crystal globe by a wafer-thin five points over Stuhec on 430. Switzerland's Lara Gut, the reigning World Cup overall champion, was the only other skier within striking distance of the title but did not race after tearing knee ligaments at the world championships in St. Moritz. American favourite Lindsey Vonn, second in Wednesday's downhill, did not finish sliding off course into the safety netting before skiing to the bottom of the course unscathed. There was no such suspense in the men's Super G where Norway's Olympic champion Kjetil Jansrud, having already secured the title, crossed a leisurely ninth in the season finale. Austria's Hannes Reichelt took the win in 1:08.22 while Italian Dominik Paris, winner of Wednesday's downhill, came home second ahead of Switzerland's Mauro Caviezel and Norway's Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, shared third place. Despite the modest result Jansrud still ran away with the crown, topping the standings with 394 points with Reichelt a distant second on 303. (Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto; Editing by Frank Pingue)