Winter sports roundup: Steven Holcomb wins again as U.S. sweeps 2-man luge at World Cup event

Lake Placid, N.Y. • The U.S. bobsled team went nearly 13 years without sweeping all three medal spots in a World Cup race.

It's now happened twice in eight days.

With even the head of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation calling it "kind of surreal," the Americans extended their ridiculous start to this Olympic season on Saturday, when Park City's Steven Holcomb added to his undefeated start by driving to yet another win and leading the first U.S. sweep of a World Cup 2-man race.

Holcomb and Chris Fogt finished two runs in 1 minute, 50.19 seconds at Mount Van Hoevenberg. Nick Cunningham and Johnny Quinn were second in 1:50.74, and Cory Butner and Chuck Berkeley were third in 1:50.85 — capping off a sweep that came on the heels of the U.S. women winning a gold and tying for silver at a World Cup race in Park City, Utah last weekend.

Men's giant slalom

Val D'isere, France • for the first time in nearly five years, Ted Ligety didn't reach the final of a World Cup giant slalom race.

The first skier down the hill, Ligety took a gate too wide, went down on his hip and out of his opening run Saturday on the steep and icy Stade Olympique de Bellevarde course. Two-time defending World Cup champion Marcel Hirscher won the giant slalom, while Bode Miller also didn't finish his first run after tripping over his skis near the bottom.

A winner of two giant slaloms this season, Ligety hadn't missed qualifying for the second run of the event since February 2009 at Sestriere, Italy — a string of 30 races.

Women's super-G

St. Moritz, Switzerland • Tina Weirather won a World Cup super-G race, finishing in 1 minute, 17.38 seconds to climb atop the podium after finishing runner-up three times already this season.

Kajsa Kling of Sweden was second, 0.31 seconds back, and Anna Fenninger of Austria trailed by 0.39 in third.

Lindsey Vonn of the United States, who won this race last year, skipped the St. Moritz meet which concludes with a giant slalom on Sunday. Vonn has chosen a lighter World Cup schedule to manage a knee injury before the Sochi Olympics.

Men's halfpipe

Breckenridge, Colo. • Shaun White's hands hit the halfpipe and his snowboard chattered across the ice. He stopped briefly at the bottom to check out his sore left ankle, then got ready for another run that would presumably bring the halfpipe world back into its proper orbit.

Only, it didn't.

Shaken from his spill, White was less-than-perfect on his second trip down the pipe Saturday. And that brought about the most surprising result on an unpredictable day at the Dew Tour: The world's top snowboarder finished second in the year's opening Olympic qualifier, behind Greg Bretz, who all but sealed up a trip to his second Olympics.

Women's moguls

Kuusamo, Finland • Olympic champion Hannah Kearney of the United States won the season-opening World Cup moguls.

Kearney scored 25.07 points to beat Justine Dufour-Lapointe of Canada by 1.17. Aiko Uemura of Japan was third.