Two French people on the provisional podium: the summary of the first round
A round worthy of the greatest hours of slalom specialist Marlies Schild, legend in Austria. In Gurgl, Clément Noël skis with 100% confidence on the slider. In a tricky first course, the Avalin made no mistakes, putting out a fantastic run. As in Levi, just last week, he is in the lead of the first round but this time, with a good lead. Atle Lie McGrath is 88 hundredths behind, in second position.
The French on a cloud
Another similarity with the slalom contested in Lapland, the place of Steven Amiez. The Courchevel skier is 3rd at the end of the first course, being the last under a second behind (+0''94). The latter set off at the right time since visibility significantly improved during his passage. If Clément Noël left almost in a blank day, for Amiez the sun broke through. This was the case for the other slalom racers after him.
The wearer of the red bib did things well and his coach, Thomas Maître, will be the leader of the second act, which begins at 1:30 p.m. Lucas Pinheiro Braathen will not repeat his exploits of Sölden and Levi (4th). The Brazilian rode in the lower part of the course and will not be in the second round. It's also over for Marcel Hirscher who failed to reach the finish.
Rassat qualified, 3 Blues in second round
With this large number of abandonments, a track and conditions that are still as good, it is possible to enter with bigger bibs. The Finnish Eduard Hallberg did it again with an 11th place, he was 8th after the first round in Levi. The French also benefit from it. Paco Rassat confirms the skiing shown with a 23rd place and a new qualification. Hugo Desgrippes comes very close, being one tenth from the Top 30.
Clement Noel : “It was a good first round. I'm quite surprised, the conditions are quite difficult. I didn't expect that after the recognition. I was rather calm, I thought I was going to have fun on good snow and in the end it was very, very icy. I didn't have a good feeling but I think everyone had a bit of a difficult feeling. There is still some work to do so we will try to continue this momentum. »
Steven Amiez : “This first round was not that easy. After the reconnaissance, we thought we'd have fun but the snow didn't stick as well as we thought. Clément gave me the information so I remained rather calm. This is going in the right direction and now we will try to finish the job in the second round. »
