Janka wins GS; Ligety 3d

Carlo Janka of Switzerland won the giant slalom at the World Alpine Skiing Championships yesterday in Val d'Isere, France, while American Ted Ligety was third and Bode Miller did not finish.

Janka timed 2 minutes 18.82 seconds for the two runs down the Face de Bellevarde course. Benjamin Raich of Austria finished second, 0.71 seconds behind.

Ligety earned the first medal for the US men at Val d'Isere. After finishing ninth in the opening run, he moved into the bronze medal position by posting the fastest run in the second leg (1:09.85).

"I just tried to get all my nerves out," he said. "I knew I had a bad first run and had to give everything and attack all the way."

It's a second major championship medal for the 24-year-old from Park City, Utah. Ligety won gold at the 2006 Turin Olympics in combined.

Miller was 17th fastest after the first run. But the 2003 world champion in the giant slalom skied out before halfway down in the second.

The 31-year-old from Franconia, N.H., is winless in 26 World Cup events and four world championship races this season.

Lindsey Vonn will compete in today's slalom at the world championships at despite slicing her thumb Monday on a broken champagne bottle and having surgery.

She missed Thursday's giant slalom and spent two days testing a specially designed splint that will enable her to hold her ski pole.

Teammate Julia Mancuso decided to skip the slalom to get a jump on training for World Cup races next week in Tarvisio, Italy.

Swiss skier Daniel Albrecht will suffer no permanent damage to his health from brain and lung injuries following his downhill training crash last month, doctors said . . . Lindsey Jacobellis of Stratton Mountain, Vt., won a World Cup snowboardcross at Cypress Mountain, British Columbia . . . World Cup luge overall leader Tatjana Huefner and German teammate Natalie Geisenberger won gold and silver at the Viessman World Cup at Calgary. Germany's winning streak of 99 straight women's races was snapped at last week's world championships when Erin Hamlin of the US took the title in Lake Placid, N.Y. . . . Alexandre Bilodeau led a Canadian sweep in men's moguls in Are, Sweden, while Margarita Marbler of Austria won the women's event at a World Cup freestyle meet.