Austria season a near miss, not failure says Raich

By Brian Homewood

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (Reuters) - Austria have failed to win a downhill this season, came away from the Vancouver without a single medal in men's Alpine skiing yet could still end up with the overall world champion thanks to Benjamin Raich.

Raich finished sixth in Thursday's super-G to reduce the gap between himself and leader Carlo Janka to 38 points with two races to go -- the giant slalom Friday and Saturday's slalom.

Raich dismissed the suggestion he was skiing to salvage the season for Austria and said it was wrong to consider their recent performances a failure.

"We didn't get knocked out in the first round, it was more a case of getting to the semi-final," he told Reuters.

"It's not like it was in the 90s but we have a strong team, we have four guys in the top 15 of the overall World Cup.

"Skiing is much closer nowadays."

Austria, who last went through the season without winning a downhill in 1991/92, had a string of near misses at the Olympics.

Marcel Hirscher, who ended up fourth, missed a medal by eight hundredths of a second in the giant slalom while Romed Baumann and 2006 gold medalist Raich also came tantalizingly close to a podium finish with fifth and sixth place respectively.

Their run continued at Garmisch when Mario Scheiber finished second in the downhill, losing to Janka by just two-hundredths of a second.

However, away from the downhill, Raich, Reinfried Herbst, Marcel Hirscher and Michael Walchhofer have shared eight World Cup wins between them this season and are all in top 15 of the overall standings.

Raich, 31, has been a model of consistency over the years, finishing second in 2005, winning in 2006 and then finishing second again in each of the last three seasons.

Considered much stronger than Janka in the slalom, he declined to accept that the odds were now stacked in his favor.

"I wouldn't say I'm the favorite, it's still very open and he's very strong in giant slalom," Raich said.

"This is a very big goal for me personally and also for Austria."

(editing by Justin Palmer)