Marion Rolland captures women's downhill

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SCHLADMING, Australia, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Marion Rolland of France narrowly won the women's downhill at the Alpine World Championships in Austria Sunday.

Rolland won the first World Championships medal of her career with a time of 1 minute, 50.00 seconds, edging Italy's Nadia Fanchini by a mere 0.16 seconds.

Maria Hoefl-Riesch of German placed third, 0.70 seconds behind Rolland, who started in the 22nd position on the icy course.

"This is like a dream to me," said Rolland, who raised France's medal totals for the worlds to three. "It was absolutely breath-taking today."

Americans Julia Mancuso and Stacy Cook placed fifth and sixth respectively. Overall World Cup points leader Tina Maze of Slovenia placed seventh.