(Sölden) Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt dominated the first race of the men’s Alpine Ski World Cup season on Sunday and won the giant slalom in Sölden by more than seven tenths of a second over his closest pursuer.
Posted at 6:27pm
The reigning Olympic champion in the Odermatt discipline completed both runs with a total time of two minutes and 4.72 seconds.
After an almost perfect first run (59.88 seconds), which he was the only one to complete in less than a minute, Odermatt overcame some mistakes in the second on the steep glacier of the Austrian Alps and relegated the Slovenian Zan Kranjec to 76 hundredths of a second.
Kranjec also had to settle for second place behind Odermatt at the Olympic Games in Beijing in February.
Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen was third in 2:05.69, 97 hundredths of a second behind the winner.
“I wasn’t sure if that (the lead after the first run) would be enough. It was really a big fight. The snow conditions kept getting worse. Everyone made mistakes,” said Odermatt, who also won this race last year for his first of five giant slalom victories in the World Cup.
“You have to be mentally ready. You have to rise to the challenge,” he added.
Trevor Philp (2:06.52) was the best Canadian at 15e Square. After completing the first run at 30e He was the first to attack the course in heat two, which he completed in 1:04.00. Only American Tommy Ford (1:03.62) and Slovenia’s Stefan Hadalin (1:03.67) finished better than Philp in heat two.
Canada’s Erik Read, who finished thirteen after the opening heat, dropped four places after finishing the second heat in 1:05.22 for a total time of 2:06.59.
Two other Canadians, Riley Seger and Asher Jordan, failed to qualify for heat two.
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