ADELBODEN, Switzerland (AP) — Marco Odermatt’s dominant season in the World Cup giant slalom helped Switzerland to victory after a 14-year wait in its classic home race Saturday.
At the limit of his balance on the steep final descent, Odermatt maintained his morning lead and was 0.48 seconds faster than Manuel Feller, who finished fifth with the second fastest run.
Alexis Pinturault finished third, 0.54 back, and took more points than World Cup Leader Odermatt in the defense of his overall title.
Erik Read of Canmore, Alta., was the 12th.
Odermatt now has four wins and a second-place finish in five giant slalom races this Season and is the hotly anticipated favorite in the next one – at the Beijing Olympics in February. 13.
“Marco is alone in his own universe this year,” Pinturault, who won bronze in giant slalom at the last two winter Games, told Swiss broadcaster RTS. “He has a Level that no one can reach today.”
Odermatt became the first Swiss winner of the famous Adelboden giant slalom, when Marc Berthod won on the snowy pastures.
His winning run was cheered on by more than 13,000 noisy fans at the Chuenisbärgli springboard, who were absent last year due to the recent times.
“I definitely wanted to win today and give all the Swiss a great show here,” Odermatt said, adding that he was “a little proud to have managed to ski here twice.”
The 24-year-old star has won at least four of the first five giant slalom races of a World Cup Season in addition to top Alpine skiers Jean-Claude Killy, Ingemar Stenmark, Ted Ligety and Marcel Hirscher.
All five men won at Adelboden, starting with Killy in the first week of the first world cup season in January.
Odermatt is the undisputed leader of the seasonal giant slalom standings with another 100 race points Saturday ahead of Feller. With three more races pending, Odermatt will be able to win the crystal trophy at the next edition, on March 12, in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.
He also leads the overall standings with a wide lead of 376 ahead of Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, the Champion who skipped the Adelboden meeting. Odermatt will not compete in a Slalom on Sunday.
Odermatt’s combined victory time of over 2 minutes, 34 seconds was unusually long for a giant slalom. It was driven on hard snow under cloudy skies with temperatures around minus-2 Celsius (28 Fahrenheit).
Five of the top 15 starters failed to finish a grueling first race.
Luca de Aliprandini, the world championship silver medallist last February, crashed out when he crashed faster than Odermatt through the third time trial. His left Ski scored a goal – a rarity in the giant slalom, where the edges of the turns are wider than in the Slalom.
River Radamus, the highest-ranked American in the race with the number 14, crashed at the penultimate goal and was sent to the side of the finish line.