Giant slalom in Aspen – Swiss double victory: Odermatt triumphs ahead of Meillard – Sport


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Marco Odermatt wins the 11th giant slalom in a row and gets the small crystal ball early. Loïc Meillard also managed to make it onto the podium.

Legend:

Can look forward to the next crystal ball

Marco Odermatt.

Keystone/

The top drivers

Marco Odermatt also hits in Aspen and can once again look forward to several successes. With his 11th giant slalom victory in a row (three still missing from Ingemar Stenmark’s record), he secured the small ball for the discipline World Cup after the overall World Cup.

For once, his biggest competitor was a teammate. Loïc Meillard, 3rd after the 1st run, led with an outstanding 2nd run and forced the half-time leader Odermatt to put in a par force performance. The man from Nidwalden managed to do this once again. As so often, he created the decisive difference in the final part and won the 8th giant slalom this season. Overall, he was on the World Cup podium in his flagship discipline for the 25th time in a row.

Only a little was missing and a third Swiss would have been on the podium. Thomas Tumler finished fourth for the second time within a week. The 34-year-old was only 16 hundredths short of his second podium finish in the giant slalom. Meanwhile, the Norwegian Atle Lie McGrath, who was in seventh place immediately behind Tumler after the first run, improved to third place.

Difficult conditions

The conditions in the US state of Colorado were particularly worth talking about. The change from the rock-hard conditions in the upper part of the route to the extremely soft snow on the finish slope caused problems for many riders. In the first run, 24 of the 65 athletes who started were eliminated.

Austria and the USA, among others, were hit by bad luck. After the first run and the failures of Manuel Feller and Stefan Brennsteiner, Raphael Haaser was only in 17th place as the best ÖSV athlete. In the second round, he at least provided a ray of hope from an Austrian perspective by rising to 9th place.

For the locals, 4 athletes were eliminated at the same point in the first run. River Radamus, who was the only local hero to qualify for the second run, also improved in the decision and finished in 11th place. Last week he celebrated his podium debut in Palisades Tahoe.

The other Swiss

Fadri Janutin impressed with two strong runs and made it into the top 15 for the first time in his career in 14th place. So far, two 17th places (one each in the slalom and giant slalom) have been his best results in the World Cup. The race was rather disappointing for Gino Caviezel (19th) and Justin Murisier (23rd).

With Luca Aerni, another athlete in the Swiss team was able to surprise positively. With start number 62, he made it into the second run of a giant slalom for the first time since the 2018 Olympic Games. In the decision he was able to improve to 24th place. Livio Simonet, Marco Fischbacher and Sandro Zurbrügg were already eliminated in the first run.

This is how it continues

The next giant slalom is scheduled for Saturday in Aspen (live on SRF Zwei and in the Sport app from 5:50 p.m.). On Sunday the pole artists will be in demand at the same location before the ski entourage travels back to Europe for the last 3 weeks of the World Cup.

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