Olympic downhill champ and World Cup super G leader Carole Montillet of France upset an Austrian bid to sweep a SG podium Sunday as she finished second behind Brigitte Obermoser with Renate Goetschl in third. Top U.S. result came from Kirsten Clark in ninth.

Obermoser won with a time of 1:28.06 while Montillet, skiing 30th, finished in 1:28.27, putting her .05 ahead of Goetschl, who won Friday's super G on the Olympia course at Patscherkofel. Austrian Alexandra Meissnitzer tied with Olympic super G champ Daniele Ceccarelli for fourth. This was Obermoser's third World Cup win, all in different disciplines - GS in Bormio, Italy, in March 2000 and then downhill in St. Moritz in December 2000 and then Sunday in super G.

Clark, silver medalist in SG at the World Championships in St. Moritz, was ninth in 1:28.52 while SG bronze medalist Jonna Mendes was 12th.

Libby Ludlow, who's enjoying the best season of her career - and who was second in two Europa Cup super Gs after she raced at Worlds, posted the best result of her career in 16th place.

Downhill/SG Head Coach Jim Tracy said the conditions were an improvement over the past two days on the course near the Brenner Pass south of Innsbruck. "They used chemicals over more than half the course, I'd say, and the conditions were just so much better…[Saturday] was really sticky and gluey at the bottom, but this was good," he said.

Clark was one-hundredth of a second ahead when she got low on a gate on the lower portion of the course and went into some soft snow, according to Tracy. "She made a good recovery but she lost some speed as she went into a flat just before the final, steep pitch and it cost her," he said.

"But all of 'em were going for it. We knew it was going to be tight, and it was…so close…but they attacked. I give 'em all credit." He was particularly pleased with Ludlow's best-ever showing as she rebounded from knee problems in recent seasons. "Libby's shown, now that she's healthy, that she can ski with these other girls; it's a shame she didn't get to World Cup Finals, but that'll just make her more hungry next year and she'll ski her way into them then…"

The women head to Are, Sweden, for a night slalom Thursday and giant slalom Saturday before heading to World Cup Finals March 12-16 in Lillehammer, Norway. Then comes the Chevy Truck U.S. Alpine Championships March 20-25 at Whiteface Mountain outside Lake Placid, NY.

— Courtesy U.S. Ski Team