Skiing: Goergl takes gold as Vonn struggles

Austria's Elisabeth Goergl upstaged favourites Maria Riesch and Lindsey Vonn yesterday to snatch the women's Super-G gold in the opening event of the Alpine skiing world championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Goergl, double bronze medallist at the Vancouver Olympics last year, beat Julia Mancuso of the US by just 0.05sec to claim her first world championship gold at the age of 29.

The defending champion Vonn blamed the after-effects of a training crash last week for a disappointing seventh. "It wasn't me. I had a bad headache, I decided to give it a go but I wasn't aggressive, it was bad for me."