Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt crushes field to win season-opening World Cup giant slalom in Solden

Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt opened the World Cup season with victory on the Rettenbach Glacier above the Austrian town of Solden.

The 2022 Beijing gold medalist was a class apart all day, holding a 0.4 second lead over Lucas Braathen of Norway from the first run.

Braathen, who won the same event in 2020, in turn held a solid lead over the remainder of the field.

Though there was still plenty of firmness on the course, the weather was getting warmer and warmer, with the softening course seeming to favour those first few to make their second runs.

The first down the course was the Canadian Trevor Philip, who had been slowest in the first run and already he was creating plenty of spray at each turn.

American Tommy Ford was the first racer to stake out a strong position with a speedy second run. He held top spot against the next 15 contenders.

The Slovakian Adam Zampa was just one of the racers to lose his footing on what was quickly becoming a treacherous track.

Frenchman Thibaut Favrot blazed through the first half of the course and seemed like he was finally going to unseat Ford, but slowed on the final stretch and missed out by 0.24 seconds.

Ford had already outlasted more than half of the field before Rasmus Windingstad stepped up. The Norwegian had a strong lead from his first run and, despite a slow second run, he had enough to knock Ford off by 0.05 seconds. The blazing sun had briefly disappeared behind the cloud cover, perhaps a key factor as so many other second runs struggled in the soft pack.

Windingstad’s lead was fragile but it still survived for some time.

German Alexander Schmid had green lights all the way down the course but finished 0.26 seconds off Windingstad, losing three tenths of a second on the flat.

Henrik Kristoffersen knocked off Windingstad by 0.25 seconds with a quick and risky run. He notably improved on the second half of the run, where he had lost time in his first attempt.

The 28-year-old former Junior World Champion was targeting a first ever win at Sölden.

Manuel Feller – the sole remaining Austrian – was next up, but inconsistency in the turns saw him finish nearly one second off the pace.

Slovenian ace Jan Kranjec took the lead from Kristoffersen with a daring second run. The 2022 Beijing silver medalist followed his plan perfectly to unseat the Norwegian with just two racers to come.

Lucas Braathen was so enthusiastic for his run that he didn’t even wait for the signal, bursting out onto the course. The young Norweigan raced aggressively but finished 0.34 seconds off the pace.

Only Odermatt was left to race.

The Swiss almost lost his footing on one of the early turns, blasting down at full tilt.

But he then flew down the second half of the course to claim the 12th win of his career by a huge 0.76 second margin and start his World Cup campaign with 100 points.

Odermatt is bidding to become the first man to defend the overall World Cup title since Marcel Hirscher in 2019.

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