BORMIO, Italy, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Felix Neureuther of Germany skied a flawless second run Monday to win the men's World Cup slalom at Bormio, Italy.
Neureuther began the second trip down the course just 1/100th of a second ahead of Marcel Hirscher, but finished with a combined-run time of 1 minute, 59.75 seconds and a comfortable margin over the Austrian veteran.
"I knew I really needed to attack in the second run," said Neureuther, who won his first World Cup race of the season. "I have been in situations before where Marcel and I would be very close after the first run and then he would just put the hammer down. Now it was my turn to do the same."
Hirscher was clocked at 2:00.11 and placed second ahead of Italian Manfred Moellg.
Naoki Yuasa jumped from 26th place after the first run into fourth. Jason Chodounsky was the top U.S. finisher with a 15th-place time of 2:01.81.
Chodounsky said the race required a flawless performance due to the combination of a relatively flat surface and soft snow, which made it tough to make up time after a mistake. "The snow kind of threw me off guard here," he said. "It's pretty warm so it was really grippy. It was tough to control the skis."
