Sweethearts Benjamin Raich and Marlies Schild got the Alpine ski World Cup off to the perfect start at the weekend, each winning a slalom race. Double Olympic champion Raich topped the podium on Sunday, 24 hours after Schild had stood in the same spot.
The Austrian couple get little chance to be together during the four-month World Cup, with men and women following their own circuits apart from the opening events and the March finals.
With no races next weekend, however, the pair were looking forward to a joint celebration before going their separate ways in North America.
"We'll get a chance to celebrate this together," said Raich, who is defending the overall and giant slalom World Cup titles this season. "It's really nice."
Raich was in superb form as he swept to his 24th career win. He led from the first leg on the Levi Black course in Finnish Lapland and beat Swede Markus Larsson into second place by the huge margin of 0.62 seconds.
Sunday's race had also offered the 28-year-old Raich a first glimpse of the opposition he was likely to face from American former champion Bode Miller for this season's overall title.
The challenge failed to materialise. Miller, the big disappointment of February's Winter Olympics, was two seconds off the pace in the first run and did not make the cut for the second leg.
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