Olympic giant slalom champion Marco Odermatt dominated the season-opening males’s World Cup race Sunday in Sölden, Austria, beating the sphere by greater than seven-tenths of a second for his twelfth profession win.
The Swiss skier had a near-flawless first run and overcame a couple of errors in his second on the steep glacier within the Austrian Alps to complete .76 seconds forward of Zan Kranjec of Slovenia.
Henrik Kristoffersen completed .97 behind in third, forward of Norwegian teammate Lucas Braathen, who dropped from second after the opening run to fourth.
“I used to be unsure [the first-run lead] was sufficient, this was actually an enormous battle. The snow received worse and worse. Everybody made some errors,” stated Odermatt, who additionally received the race final 12 months for the primary of his 5 GS victories on the street to his first total title.
Trevor Philp was the highest Canadian finisher, 1.8 seconds again of Odermatt for fifteenth place. Fellow Canadian Erik Read was seventeenth.
The race was watched by 14,000 spectators in sunny circumstances below blue skies, a day after the ladies’s race was cancelled resulting from rain and moist snow.