Austrian skier Marcel Hirscher won Sunday’s World Cup slalom in Bulgaria, adding to his giant slalom success at the Bankso course on Saturday.

The Austrian’s eighth win of season closed the gap on overall World Cup leader Ivica Kostelic of Croatia to just 18 points.

“I’m delighted with the points that I’ve won but I don’t want to speculate on the points that I need to win the overall or the globe in the discipline,” said Hirscher, who won an appartment in the ski resort as a result of his weekend exploits.

As with his four previous slalom victories this winter, Hirscher led from the first run, to finish 0.57sec ahead of Swede Andre Myhrer with Italy’s Stefano Gross, one of the revelations of the season, at 0.90.

Austria’s Mario Matt, winner of the slalom here last year, thought he had placed second but was disqualified after the race.

Hirscher, 22, profited from the absence of Kostelic, who underwent knee surgery on Monday, and is also closing in on the Croat’s lead in the slalom standings as he trails by just 35 points.

Kostelic, who attacked his rival earlier this year over a controversial slalom victory in Zagreb by Hirscher where he claimed he should have been disqualified for straddling a gate, said earlier this week he hoped to miss just three slalom races.