(sda) Odermatt made up four places in the second run. By relegating Alexis Pinturault to third place by six hundredths, he shortened the gap to the French in the discipline classification to 25 points.
Behind Odermatt, Loïc Meillard and Justin Murisier came in 7th and 8th. The Engadin Daniele Sette, who has only been a member of Swiss-Ski since 2019, raced from 23rd to 11th place on his 29th birthday with a fastest time clearly exceeded his best World Cup result so far. Gino Caviezel rounded off the strong team result on the pimple-hard slope despite the high temperatures in twelfth place.
With Odermatt’s return to the podium and five drivers in the top 12, the Swiss team has shaken off the World Cup blues. Although regularly represented in the top 3 in the World Cup, Swiss-Ski in Cortina, presumably the strongest giant slalom team, missed out. Worse still: in fifth, Meillard was the only Swiss classified. Now Odermatt has secured the eighth Swiss podium in the eighth World Cup giant slalom. For the tenth time in a row, the 23-year-old from Nidwalden was placed in the top 5 in his strongest discipline in the World Cup.
The victory went to world champion Mathieu Faivre. The 29-year-old Frenchman, who won gold in the giant slalom and parallel races in Cortina, prevailed with a reserve of 75 hundredths. The day before, Faivre had finished second after leading at half-time, and now he has achieved his second World Cup victory after Val d’Isère in 2016. His increase is striking: Before the World Cup, Faivre had an 8th place as the season’s best result.
Two giant slaloms are still outstanding: the one in Kranjska Gora on March 13th and the one at the World Cup final in Lenzerheide a week later. In addition to leader Pinturault and pursuer Odermatt, the previous day’s winner Filip Zubcic also has a chance of winning the small crystal ball. After a time-consuming mistake in the first run and finishing 14th, the Croatian is 64 points behind Pinturault and 39 points behind Odermatt.
Pinturault will hardly miss the victory in the overall World Cup after two second places. With nine races to go, the all-rounder is 210 points ahead of Odermatt and more than 300 points ahead of Austrian technician Marco Schwarz.
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