Hoefl-Riesch wins opening World Cup slalom

Germany's Maria Hoefl-Riesch racked up her 24th World Cup victory on Saturday when she won the opening slalom of the season. The 27-year-old two-time Olympic champion - she won gold in both the slalom and the combined in the 2010 edition in Vancouver - beat Finland's Tanja Poutiainen and young American Mikaela Schiffrin by 55hundreths and 74 hundreths of a second respectively. Pre-race favourite Marlies Schild of Austria will have to wait a bit longer to equal the all-time slalom victory of 34 held by Swiss great Vreni Vreni Schneider as she crashed out on the first leg. American superstar Lindsey Vonn gave the race a miss in order to focus on the giant slalom and slalom set for Aspen, Colorado, on November 24-25.