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Germany's Felix Neureuther wins men's giant slalom

ADELBODEN, Switzerland, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Felix Neureuther of Germany won the men's giant slalom in Switzerland Saturday for his second World Cup victory in as many weeks.

Neureuther jumped from seventh place to the top of the podium with a flawless second run that beat second-place Thomas Fanara of France by 0.10 seconds and gave Germany its first giant-slalom win on the course at Adelboden since 1973.

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"I never thought that I would win a giant slalom because I was always better in slalom and the guys I'm skiing against are so strong right now," said Neureuther, who won Monday's slalom in Italy. "It was really the perfect day for me."

Neureuther turned in a combined-run time of 2 minutes, 34.60 seconds for the victory. Austrian veteran Marcel Hirscher came in third with a 2:34.79 and held on to his lead in the giant-slalom standings.

Ted Ligety of the United States, the defending champion at Adelboden, was in third place after the first run but clipped a gate on run No. 2 and skied out. "I feel like I was starting to ski OK and find the rhythm of the course and then just crappy bad luck and just bounced into the gate a little bit unexpectedly," he said. "That's just part of ski racing."

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Temperatures were on the warm side at Adelboden in the run-up to Saturday's event, which led to tricky conditions on the course. "The snow is just really weird. It kind of pops you out in places and then is really 'peely' and hard to get anything established in other places, so it's really bizarre snow to try to ski well on," Ligety said.

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