The Swiss skier Marco Odermatt won the giant of Val d’Isère on Saturday, his first victory of the winter in his favorite discipline, he who remained on two incomprehensible slope exits in giant.
Starting from bib 6, in the snow, the 27-year-old Swiss was the fastest in the first round on the Face de Bellevarde. Despite poor conditions in the second round, he resisted and won ahead of the Austrians Patrick Feurstein (+8/100th) and Stefan Brennsteiner (+12/100th).
Olympic champion, world champion, three-time winner of the small globe in the specialty and author of 23 successes in the discipline, including 9 in 10 races last winter, « Odi » thus setting the record straight after a catastrophic start to the giant winter.
He had in fact failed to complete the first two winter giants (Sölden and Beaver Creek), « DNF » extremely rare consecutive matches for him who had not come out in 40 starts for a World Cup giant between December 2019 and March 2023.
With this giant victory – his fourth in a row in the Haute-Savoyard resort – Odermatt signs his second success of the winter after the Super-G of Beaver Creek at the beginning of December.
The morning was marked by the heavy fall of Frenchman Clément Noël, winner of the first two slaloms of the winter, who took a gate head-on during the first round and finished in the net.
He had broken teeth and appeared to be in pain in his right ankle. We currently have no further details on his condition and we do not know if he will take part in the slalom on Sunday, where he is eagerly awaited since he is aiming for a third victory in a row between the stakes.
The four French people qualified in the second round did not shine: Thibaut Favrot finished 22nd at 1 sec 68, just ahead of Alban Elezi Cannaferina (23rd), Léo Anguenot (25th) and Alexis Pinturault (28th).
Swiss
