SESTRIERE, Italy - Didier Cuche of Switzerland won a men's World Cup giant slalom Saturday for his first win of the season and ninth overall, while Ivica Kostelic of Croatia stayed atop the overall standings.

Cuche finished his two runs on the 1.6-kilometre Kandahar Banchetta course in an aggregate time of two minutes 49.57 seconds to beat Stephan Goergl of Austria by 0.66.

Benjamen Raich, also of Austria, was 0.89 back in third and his compatriot Romed Baumann was fourth, 1.05 behind Cuche.

"It went all very well on this snow," Cuche said. "It's icy and hard, that's the way I like it best … The skis did what I wanted them to do and I was able to really push."

Jean-Philippe Roy of Ste-Flavie, Que., was 19th, while John Kucera of Calgary finished 26th.

It was Cuche's second win in giant slalom after victory in his native Adelboden in 2002. He won gold in super-G and silver in downhill at the world championships in Val d'Isere earlier this month.

"The successes at the worlds gave me a lot of confidence," he said. "I came close to winning before the worlds but made mistakes all the time."

Kostelic took 11th and remained the overall leader with 766 points ahead of Raich with 740 and Jean-Baptiste Grange of France with 726.

Kostelic, who left the world championships earlier this month after the opening super-G race to get treatment for a back injury, wasn't clean in parts of both runs and finished 1.51 behind Cuche.

Goergl, who was dropped from Austria's GS team for the worlds, had his first podium finish in three seasons.

"To me personally, this is a huge satisfaction to be back on the podium after such a long time," Goergl said.

Raich's third-place finish was just enough to keep him in the lead of the giant slalom standings. The Austrian has 346 points to lead Cuche by 12 with two remaining GS races this season.

"You have to get the standings out of your head while racing," said Raich. "My runs were not clean, especially the first one. Without mistakes my result could have been a bit better but you just have to be happy when you're on a podium."

Tim Jitloff of the United States posted the fastest second-run time and climbed from 18th to fifth, 1.11 seconds behind Cuche, for his career best result.

"Jitloff came into this race after getting third in Europa Cup and he's found his rhythm in GS," U.S. men's team head coach Sasha Rearick said. "He had a very good first run, top-to-bottom solid skiing. He fully attacked the course."

Cuche's Swiss teammate Carlo Janka skied off course in the bottom part of his opening run and missed a gate in his first race since winning gold in giant slalom at the worlds eight days ago.

World championship bronze medallist Ted Ligety of the U.S. went out in the first run after losing balance on his inside ski in the same turn where Janka quit the race. Ligety now trails Raich by 105 points in the GS standings.

World Cup overall champion Bode Miller skipped the race in Sestriere as he took a mid-season break after failing to win a medal at the worlds.

A men's super-combined, consisting of a super-G and a slalom run, is scheduled for Sunday.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Feb 21, 11:39 am EST