Marco Odermatt claims giant slalom gold at Winter Olympics as blizzard causes havoc in Beijing
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Updated 13/02/2022 at 11:30 GMT
Marco Odermatt overcame challenging snowy conditions to take giant slalom gold in an unpredictable race, as conditions caused havoc on the course. The favourite for the title beat Zan Kranjec, who claimed an impressive silver, with Mathieu Faivre taking bronze for France. A succession of riders did not finish as treacherous conditions, which had seen a delay in the second run, caused chaos.
'Just holds on' - Odermatt grabs thrilling gold in giant slalom at Beijing 2022
Marco Odermatt fulfilled his billing as favourite for giant slalom gold at the Winter Olympics as he shrugged off extremely challenging conditions to win the title in Beijing.
Heavy snow and poor visibility caused havoc, with several contenders for the medals struggling to deal with the weather, but the Swiss sensation kept his cool to win ahead of Slovenia's Zan Kranjec and Mathieu Faivre of France.
Conditions were tough with heavy snow falling on a course which is put together using manufactured snow, with mist and fog also causing issues with visibility, prompting complaints from some of the skiers. At one stage, the first run looked like it might be cancelled midway through, and the second was delayed by over an hour.
A new giant slalom king was always going to be crowned given 2018 champion Marcel Hirscher retired back in 2019. Since the Austrian’s departure from the sport, Henrik Kristoffersen (2020) and Alexis Pinturault (2021) both won a giant slalom World Cup crystal globe apiece, although it was Odermatt who headed into the event as favourite having dominated the 2021-22 season so far.
Odermatt leads the giant slalom World Cup standings having won four of the five races, finishing second in the other, and that made the Swiss the man to beat on the ‘Ice River’ course at the Yanqing National Alpine Ski Centre. He was able to rise to the occasion in the opening run, posting the fastest time of 1:09.93 despite the difficult conditions.
Visibility was low, with Luca De Aliprandini - second in Alta Badia back in December behind Odermatt – among the skiers complaining after he finished his first run 0.49 seconds off the pace.
De Aliprandini was sixth after Run 1, while the top five were separated by just 0.19 seconds, with Stefan Brennsteiner a surprise second ahead of Mathieu Faivre and Henrik Kristoffersen. Alexis Pinturault, two-time Olympic bronze medallist, was down in 11th – 1.06 seconds behind.
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'You can lose everything but you have to take risks' - Odermatt delighted with gold
The second run went ahead more than one hour later than originally planned, but many of the skiers were finding it tough to deal with the challenging conditions - increasing the chance of a shock result. At the halfway point, there was a surprise skier at the top of the standings as Joan Verdu of Andorra surged into a 0.81 second and the state of the slope only seemed to be getting worse as Verdu’s next challenger Lukas Braathen immediately slid off the course.
The first of the big names was next out of the start gate, as Pinturault risked everything on the closing turns to take the lead, but it looked extremely unlikely it would be enough to get the Frenchman into the medals.
Pinturault was knocked off top spot by American River Radamus, until the run of the round so far from Slovenian Zan Kranjec, who surged ahead by 1.41 seconds.
De Aliprandini had already shown he was not in a good mood because of the conditions and he looked to channel all of that frustration into his run but after surging out of the gate he pushed it too far, smashing into an early start gate and crashing out.
With five skiers still to go, Kranjec still held the lead and Thibaut Favrot was not able to displace him, putting so much effort in that he flew up in the air at one point before he recovered impressively - but it also lost him a lot of time.
Kristoffersen looked to be surging to the lead after a rapid start at the top of the course but made a huge mistake on one of the turns, sliding off the course before recovering to end his hopes of a podium place.
Faivre failed on his run too, meaning Kranjec was now guaranteed a medal having only ever won two World Cup races. Brennsteiner pushed to match his opening run, but was the latest to slide off the course, meaning only Odermatt could beat Kranjec.
The 24-year-old had seen plenty of his rivals for gold slide off the course and struggle to deal with the snow, meaning securing the title was not a formality. But the Swiss held his nerve in arguably the worst of the conditions so far and crossed the line 0.19 seconds ahead of Kranjec to win the first Olympic title of his career.
"It's unbelievable. It was a hard day, with the conditions, with such a long wait between the two runs," said Odermatt.
"It was more than five hours for me, it was such a long time to rethink everything and it was hard to stay focused. I tried to sleep some minutes in-between.
"I actually never dreamt about it but now it still feels like a dream."
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