Pinturault dominates Alpine combined race, wins season title
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Alexis Pinturault dominated the last men’s World Cup Alpine combined race of the season on Sunday to win his fourth career discipline title in style.
The Frenchman positioned himself for the triumph by finishing second in a shortened super-G portion in the morning of a cloudy day in Upper Austria.
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Pinturault comfortably wrapped up the victory in the concluding slalom.
He overcame a tricky moment halfway down his run as a gate broke when he passed it, but he managed to push it away before it could get under his skis.
The incident didn’t slow him and Pinturault posted the fastest time to win the race by 0.99 seconds from Mauro Caviezel of Switzerland, who had led by 0.23 after the super-G run.
Norwegian skiers Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Kjetil Jansrud were third and fourth, respectively.
Vincent Kriechmayr of Austria, who won a regular super-G here Saturday, finished 3.23 seconds behind outside the top 10.
Pinturault won two of three combined races this season and finished on 280 points, followed by Kilde on 172.
It was the 28th career win for Pinturault and ninth in a combined race, leaving him one short of the best mark in the discipline shared by Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg, Phil Mahre of the United States and Pirmin Zurbriggen of Switzerland.
Pinturault was on the podium in nine of his last 10 combined races, including seven wins.
Pinturault is also one of the three remaining contenders for the overall title. He closed the gap to leader Kilde to 34 points, with Kilde’s Norwegian teammate Henrik Kristoffersen 101 points back in third.
Kristoffersen finished Sunday’s race more than three seconds behind in 11th.
A giant slalom is scheduled for Monday.
