Gerg crowns comeback with victory
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Gerg won the slalom gold medal at the 1998 Olympic Games
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VEYSONNAZ, Switzerland, (Reuters) -- Hilde Gerg completed a comeback from injury with victory in the super-G on the Piste de l'Ours at Veysonnaz and immediately targeted an attack on the overall World Cup next season.
Gerg, who won the 1998 Olympic slalom, has been forced to concentrate on speed events since a series of career-threatening injuries and even considered retirement last year.
But the 28-year-old German bounded delightedly on to the podium after her third victory in Veysonnaz.
Gerg, who shared second in Saturday's downhill with Michaela Dorfmeister, won in one minute 21.34 seconds, 0.24sec clear of Dorfmeister with another Austrian, Silvia Bergia, third.
Renate Goetschl, successful in Saturday's downhill, ran out of luck when failing to finish the course after a fall in the upper part of the slope with seemingly only her pride damaged.
Gerg, who currently competes only in the speed events, said: "This is important for me and perhaps if I am not injured for next season I will try to do more giant slalom training."
"At the moment I need to win all the downhills and all the super-Gs and perhaps then I would win the overall World Cup, but I don't think this will happen.
"If I try to do more GS then, perhaps, if you have three disciplines and you can win two of them it should work for the overall. But that is not for the moment."
Gerg's ability to return from injury is as impressive as it is repetitive.
She had her right leg surgically reconstructed after an horrific training crash in February 2000 but came back in style and won the first super-G and downhill races at the start of last season.
Knee injury
Then she suffered a knee injury in a downhill fall in December 2002 in Lake Louise, Canada, but returned to action the following month after doctors told her she could wait before having surgery on damaged ligaments.
"After I got injured I had some races without my cruciate ligament then I had an operation last March," said Gerg, who has been on the circuit for a decade.
"This is the first victory after the operation and it is always great to be back on top of the injury. It is not easy to ski here but today and yesterday it was not as tough as normal because the snow was nice."
Gerg, who narrowly missed out on a medal at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, constantly fears a career-ending injury but said she would continue to race next season if she survived 2004 unscathed.
"After doing such a long rehab and everything and fighting to come back if I do not get injured again then I will go for next season," she said.
But for the moment, Gerg, who has been on the podium five times in her eight races this year, is thinking only of the remaining downhill and super-G events of this season.
"Winning gives you more self-confidence to take the risks that you need to take to win races," she said.
"I am happy that I can win at the start of January because now we have many super-G and downhills in a row and it's good to be in front."
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