Blardone wins Alta Bardia giant slalom

Italy's Massimiliano Blardone won the men's alpine skiing World Cup giant slalom Sunday on his favourite slope with Austrian duo Hannes Reichelt and Philipp Schorghofer in second and third. The 32-year-old local skier was notching up his third success at Alta Badia after winning here in 2009 and 2005 for his sixth career World Cup success. With half his World Cup haul coming here Blardone was always going to prove a danger to his rivals and so it proved as he posted the sixth fastest time after the first leg to go on and prevail by .35s from Reichelt. The American master of the discipline, Ted Ligety, led going into the second leg but the world champion faded to narrowly miss the podium in the second run. But he retained his comfortable 65 point lead in the World Cup giant slalom standings from Austria's Marcel Hirscher who came in fifth. After his success Blardone commented: "Each win, each podium is special, even more so today with the number 19 bib. "This morning I was highly motivated when I left the hotel but at the same time feeling calm and with the positive tension you need ahead of a big day. "I felt the same as two years ago and my last (World Cup) win which was again at Alta Badia and again on December 18. "My return to form hasn't happened in a flash, I believed in it and how can you not believe with 20 podiums (21 after Sunday) in the World Cup and all in the giant slalom." Runner-up Reichelt added: "I've got a lot of downhills in my legs in the past few weeks including training runs and the cancellation of Saturday's event in Val Gardena enabled me to conserve a fair bit of energy for today. "I was disappointed with my placing (28th) in the super-G at Val Gardena on Friday which was due to a mistake at the midway point."