World Cup leader Ivica Kostelic stood by his criticism of the super combined on Friday despite winning the Wengen event for his third victory of the season.

World Cup titleholder Carlo Janka finished second, missing out on his first win of the season, and Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway was third in the two-leg race which combines a shortened downhill with a slalom.

Slalom specialist Kostelic, 31, was delighted with his first win at Wengen even if it came in an event he once described as an insult to slalom skiers.

Winning at Wengen and Kitzbuhel, it's just like a Grand Slam, said the Croat, who won an old-fashioned combined at Kitzbuhel last season, before tempering his enthusiasm.

I'll repeat myself, the downhill run is between one minute 45 and one minute 50, which makes 110 seconds of downhill, so it's more than twice the length of the slalom, added the skier, whose 14 World Cup wins include 10 in slaloms.

I still have the same opinion as before. It seems they have to keep shortening the slalom run to give downhillers a chance.

Kostelic, who had a knee operation in the middle of last season, said he was enjoying the best spell of his career after winning the parallel slalom in Munich on January 2 and last week's slalom in Adelboden.

These last two weeks have been my most successful, I feel really good, I'm just riding on this wave I caught in Munich, said the double Vancouver Olympics silver-medalist.

Kostelic, who leads the World Cup from Svindal and Swiss Silvan Zurbriggen, was fifth in the downhill run while Janka led at the halfway stage, 0.96 seconds ahead of the Croat.

However, Kostelic charged down the slalom course in 52.79 seconds to set up a nail-biting finish.

Janka, skiing last, was still ahead at the halfway stage of the slalom but eventually finished 0.58 seconds adrift, silencing the cowbells in the Swiss crowd.

Janka said it was a good omen after he also finished second last season and went on to win the following day's downhill.