"Just one race"

What boss Hirscher wrote to the current leader

Marcel Hirscher and his girlfriend were delighted by Timon Haugan's (left) best time in the finish stadium in Saalbach.(Bild: AP/AP, GEPA)

The message from the boss seems to have worked. Timon Haugan, leader in the men's giant slalom in Saalbach, told the ORF interview what Hirscher sent him in a text message the evening before.

"He sent me a text yesterday," Haugan revealed when asked by ORF interviewer Rainer Pariasek about Hirscher's presence in the stands: "He said that it was just a race and that I should step on the gas."

Appeal from the boss worked
The Van Deer protégé, who is also an employee of company boss Hirscher, seems to have taken this to heart. After the first run, Haugan leads by a whole two hundredths of a second ahead of the two Swiss skiers Loic Meillard and Marco Odermatt. The Norwegian was not even 100 percent satisfied with his run. "Everything didn't work out," he explained. That almost sounded like a threat to the competition.

The second run starts at 1.15 pm. It's quite possible that Marcel Hirscher - with his girlfriend in the finish stadium in Saalbach, by the way - will then be able to celebrate a medal from his company Van Deer.