After an hour long postponement, American Will Brandenburg took the lead today (Nov. 26) at the first NorAm Cup slalom of the 2011/12 season in Loveland, Colo.

After finishing third in the first run with a time of 52.26, Brandenburg returned to take the podium with a combined  time of 1:41:70.

"It was a stacked field, but I was able to get inside that groove and punch it down the pitch." said Brandenburg. "We did really well today, our slalom team is looking good."

Initially in the lead after the first run, Austrian Marcel Hirscher fell back to second, .35 behind Brandenburg. In third was Canadian Brad Spence, another .06 off of Hirscher's time. 

Also in the top ten were Americans Jimmy Cochran, taking eighth, and Michael Ankeny who finished in a dead heat with Swiss skier Reto Schmidiger for tenth.

The field was thick with World Cup regulars such as France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange and Austria’s Mario Matt. The extensive competitive field along with the snow conditions provided and extra challenge for newcomers to the NorAm Cup circuit, resulting in a total of thirty DNF’s throughout the entire race.

The men's tour will continue racing at Loveland, tomorrow (Nov. 27) with another slalom  before moving to Aspen for the NorAm Cup giant slaloms on Monday and Tuesday (Nov. 28&29).

Story by: Susan Theis