Riesch seals women's Super-G title

By Mark Meadows

BORMIO, Italy (Reuters) - Germany's Maria Riesch won her first World Cup Super-G title on Thursday after finishing sixth in the final race of the season.

Switzerland's Fabienne Suter won the race on the tricky Stelvio course in 1 minute 19:48 seconds to finish third overall. Austria's Elisabeth Goergl ended up second in the Super-G World Cup standings, 48 points behind Riesch.

Lindsey Vonn, already this year's downhill champion, is very close to sealing her maiden overall World Cup title after finishing second in Thursday's Super-G with a confident run.

She would become the first American woman to win the overall crown since Tamara McKinney in 1983.

Only Riesch can overhaul Vonn but the German must win Friday's slalom and Saturday's giant slalom and hope the 23-year-old gets no points to have a realistic chance of snatching the title.

"I am not thinking about my rivalry with Lindsey, I don't think I'm in the game really," Riesch told reporters.

"I was more concentrating on the Super-G cup rather than overall. This year is Lindsey's year."

Vonn, formerly Lindsey Kildow, leads Riesch by 197 points with the German only able to gain a maximum 200 points from the final two races of the season.

Riesch, who became Super Combined champion in Crans Montana last Saturday, played it safe on her run to make sure of the Super-G globe after watching Vonn surge down the slope.

"It was already a big emotion for me to get the Super Combined cup as it was the first one, and now I'm celebrating my second one (trophy). It is more than I could have expected," Riesch added.

"This year the Super-G cup was really hard to fight for and, even if today I'm not really happy with my performance, I was able to make it."

The women coped better with the Super-G than the men, seven of whom failed to finish in the earlier race where American Bode Miller moved tantalizingly close to sealing the overall title.

(Additional reporting by Manuele Lang; Editing by Ken Ferris)