By USSA

KITZBUEHEL, Austria – Austria’s Matthias Mayer kicked off ski racing’s Super Bowl weekend and whipped the home-country crowd into a celebratory frenzy with a victory in Friday’s Audi FIS Ski World Cup super G. Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley) paced three Americans into the top 20, finishing 11th.

Christof Innerhofer from Italy and Switzerland’s Beat Fuez rounded out the podium in second and third respectively. Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, N.Y.) was 18th; Steve Nyman (Sundance, Utah) was 19th. A trio of Americans just missed the top 30 including Tommy Biesemeyer (Keene, N.Y.) in 33rd, Jared Goldberg (Holladay, Utah) in 34th and Brennan Rubie (Salt Lake City) in 35th.

Friday’s super G served not only as a World Cup race, but a chance for the American’s to grab one more run to prep for Saturday’s main event — the Hahnenkamm Downhill.

“After (Thursday) it was good to get a full run down the course and build a little confidence for (Saturday) and test out the body,” said Ganong, who charged a bit too hard out of the gate in the final downhill training run.

“On a hill like this it’s so hard mentally to be able to push and be confident,” Ganong added. “After (Thursday’s run) I kind of lost some confidence. Before the run (Thursday), I watched Stephan Eberharter’s winning run from 2003 and he absolutely hammered. So I was inspired to try to push as hard as I’ve ever pushed before just to see what would happen and I got a little too excited – skied straight through the first gate. So I think it’s just good to get that run done today and realize that I just need to relax and keep it simple, and not push too hard and just find the flow and go.”

Nyman came out of the 51st start position to post his seventh career top-20 World Cup super G finish. He was was also the top finisher in Wednesday’s downhill training run.

“I haven’t had a great year in super G so far,” Nyman said. “Just messing with skis and stuff and I got back on this old ski and it felt really comfortable in training the other day to where it was OK today. Best result of the year in super G for me today and hopefully it qualifies me for World Champs.”

Austria’s Marcel Hirscher was 24th in Friday’s super G and increased his overall World Cup lead to 288 points over Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen. Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud, winner of the last three three super G races, was ninth and maintained his overall World Cup super G lead with 329 points over Italy’s Dominik Paris (192 points).