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Men’s giant slalom in Aspen from 6 p.m. LIVE
Overall World Cup winner Marco Odermatt has celebrated his twelfth win of the season and also claimed the giant slalom globe early. The Swiss ski star won the first of two giant slaloms in Aspen on Friday, 0.14 seconds ahead of his compatriot Loic Meillard and 0.81 ahead of Norway's Atle Lie McGrath. The best Austrian was Raphael Haaser in ninth place, 1.39 seconds behind. Manuel Feller and Stefan Brennsteiner were eliminated in the first run.
Odermatt is on the verge of setting a new record for wins in a season. In addition to him, the Swede Ingemar Stenmark (1978/79), Hermann Maier (2000/01) and Marcel Hirscher (2017/18) also achieved 13 victories in the previous season. It was Odermatt's eleventh success in the giant slalom en suite over the course of the season. He now has a total of 36 first places in his career.
"That makes it difficult"
"These are incredible numbers. Somehow it would be nice if we didn't have these series and numbers, then I could ski more relaxed. If you already have the ball, then suddenly it's all about series and records again. That makes it difficult, but maybe that's what keeps pushing me to show this performance," said Odermatt in the ORF TV interview. He was even behind in the final on Friday at the last intermediate time. He had noticed that he hadn't really got into his skiing. "Then the next mistake, then I knew it was going to be very close. At the bottom I knew these were my gates, they had to fix it again."
The Swiss skier was also surprised by the slope in the first run, as the racers did not find typical American snow. After treatment with water, a superficial layer of ice had formed. In the lower part, however, it was already softer due to the sunlight, which made the set-up more difficult. "Difficult to find the perfect setup," Odermatt also said. A third of the participants did not see the finish in the first run, in the second only two out of thirty did.
Best run time by Haaser
Raphael Haaser improved from 17th to ninth place with the fastest time. After seventh place last time in Palisades Tahoe, it was his second-best result of the season in this discipline. "The start slope was still a bit cautious, then it was completely at the limit and as it should be. That was certainly a step in the right direction, I just have to keep at it," explained the 26-year-old in the ORF TV interview.
Dominik Raschner moved up from 29th intermediate place to 20th and made his first appearance in the giant slalom this winter. "I had a huge slope in the second run, which is a pleasure. I was able to ski my line, I did well," said the Tyrolean. Lucas Feurstein finished in 22nd place: "I'll take every point and I'm happy with my run today."
Feller was lucky to avoid a crash and stopped a little later. "My back was a bit tight. It took a bit of a toll on me during the action, and then I didn't trust myself anymore on the wave," said the man from Fieberbrunn.
Here is the final score:
Back problems
As the giant slalom is particularly strenuous for him due to back problems, he will skip the race on Saturday as planned. He will concentrate on the slalom on Sunday, where he will be aiming to win the discipline classification. "I feel like I usually do after a giant slalom. It wasn't an advantage, but it turned out well again. Regenerate tomorrow and then do a good slalom," said Feller.
Brennsteiner retired after the first intermediate time, where he was absolutely fastest. He didn't have a good feeling. "It worked well in Europe, but I can't ski here. I'm not pulling the ski, I'm finding it brutally difficult. I hope that I can adjust by tomorrow and ski decent runs." Joshua Sturm (32nd), Patrick Feurstein (25th) and Noel Zwischenbrugger (36th) also missed out on the second run.
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