Ski star Marco Odermatt has extended his winning streak in the giant slalom thanks to a fantastic comeback in Schladming. At the night event in Austria, the 26-year-old Swiss raced to the top from eleventh place in the final and celebrated his eighth World Cup victory in a row in the discipline.
The overall World Cup leader prevailed by 0.05 seconds ahead of the half-time leader Manuel Feller (Austria) and Zan Kranjec from Slovenia (0.29). Feller was close to beating Odermatt – but a small mistake shortly before the end cost him the home win.
With a big mistake in the first run, Odermatt almost lost his chances of winning – but then he was still able to celebrate. To date, a longer series of successes in giant slalom in the World Cup has only been achieved by veteran Swedish star Ingemar Stenmark, who won 14 giant slalom races in a row from 1978 to 1980. Odermatt has finished on the podium in all of his most recent 24 World Cups in the discipline.
Gratz narrowly missed out on reaching the final
Germany’s giant slalom ace Alexander Schmid came in eleventh (1.54). After the first run, the parallel world champion was still in seventh place. “I’m on the right track, it’s fine,” said the 29-year-old from Allgäu, who only returned to the World Cup in December after a cruciate ligament injury.
The other German starters had missed the second round: Fabian Gratz, 31st in the first run, was only three hundredths of a second short of reaching the final. Anton Grammel (44th), Jonas Stockinger (55th) and Stefan Luitz (57th) landed further back.
The traditional night slalom takes place in the 2013 World Cup venue on Wednesday (5.45 p.m./8.45 p.m./BR and Eurosport). Linus Straßer is going into the race as one of the favorites after his triumph in the Kitzbühel slalom run on Sunday; the Munich native had already won the floodlight event in 2022.
