Los Angeles (AFP) – Marco Odermatt pushed his Alpine World Cup giant slalom winning streak to 12 in swashbuckling style on Saturday, storming from third place after the first run to win again in Aspen.
The newly crowned overall World Cup champion from Switzerland had clinched the giant slalom season title with his 11th straight victory in the discipline in Aspen on Friday.
But his streak — which stretches back through last season — looked to be in danger when he finished third in Saturday’s first leg, .32sec behind leader Alexander Steen Olsen of Norway.
After a costly mistake early in the second leg, Odermatt responded with a scintillating performance on the lower sections to win with a total time of 2min 03.20sec.
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Compatriot Loic Meillard, second after the first run, was second, .34sec back, and Norway’s Timon Haugan was third, .58sec adrift.
Steen Olsen, meanwhile, endured a disastrous second run that left him 17th.
“I knew I had to attack after the first run,” Odermatt said.”I attacked, I took all the risks, but at the top of the course, I almost went out.
“It’s hard for me to realize and analyze what I did in this run,” added Odermatt, who is now a perfect 9-0 in giant slaloms this season, having closed out last season with victories in the last three races in the discipline.
Odermatt has matched the record for wins in a season across all disciplines of 13, a mark he shares with Ingemar Stenmark (1979) and Austrian duo Hermann Maier (2001) and Marcel Hirscher (2018).
He is poised to capture two more season titles, topping the standings in both the downhill and super-G.
If he can win the two remaining giant slaloms, he could become the first since Swedish legend Stenmark in 1978-79 to produce a clean sweep.
The Aspen World Cup stop concludes on Sunday with a slalom.
© 2024 AFP
