Seven days after his cousin Lukas Feurstein’s third place at the Super-G in Beaver Creek, Patrick Feurstein also achieved the first podium finish of his career. So far, fourth place in Alta Badia in 2021 was the best placement for the 28-year-old from Vorarlberg, who took advantage of the opportunity while there was still light sunshine.
“It’s unbelievable that I’m standing like this now. It’s cool that I was able to step up as a big cousin. I always just watched the time to see if it skipped over. “When it came to that, it was pure emotion,” explained Feurstein in the ORF interview after the race on the extremely difficult “Face de Bellvarde”.
The second run of Feurstein
Patrick Feurstein took advantage of the moment in Val d’Isere and rode like a hussar from 24th to second place.
Brennsteiner defies circumstances
While Patrick Feurstein and the Swiss Luca Ärni, who caught up 26 places and ended up fourth (0.23), benefited in the decision from the significantly worsening visibility for the following runners, Brennsteiner showed the best performance of the top runners after that first pass. The 33-year-old from Salzburg managed to make it onto the podium from fourth place.
“That means a lot to me. It was a brutally difficult race, I had a difficult start number twice, but the slope was better than expected. I’m already very happy. We were asked about the crisis, now we are here,” explained Brennsteiner, who was on the podium for the fourth time in his career on RTL. He last managed this in March 2022 in Kranjska Gora.
Brennsteiner’s journey to the podium
Stefan Brennsteiner defied the adverse conditions and was able to improve from fourth to third place in the decision.
-Fourth win in a row for Odermatt in Val d’Isere
While two Austrians are on the RTL podium for the first time since Marcel Hirscher and Manuel Feller on January 18, 2018 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Odermatt managed to return to RTL winning ways after three failures across seasons in Saalbach, Sölden and Beaver Creek. The 27-year-old had luck of a hundredth on his side, as he had just 0.08 seconds left of a lead of 2.49 seconds over Feurstein.
Odermatt celebrated his 39th World Cup victory and his fourth in a row in Val d’Isere. “I knew with five runners to go that Patrick was still leading. Incredibly strong. It was extremely close in the end,” the Swiss breathed a sigh of relief during the winner’s interview.
“It feels like a little home race, there are a lot of Swiss fans there. The relief is obviously great after two not so good giant slaloms. Getting it down like that in such a difficult race with less confidence was pretty cool. “Luck was on my side, but sometimes you need that,” explained Odermatt.
Feller was eliminated again
Meanwhile, Feller had no luck again. After a short break from the World Cup due to his hip problems, the Tyrolean finished in 16th place after an ambitious but not flawless ride. In the decision, however, the 32-year-old’s first finish of the season didn’t work out again. Feller took a hit, was eliminated cursing loudly, broke his ski pole and rushed out of the finish area without comment.
Lucas Pinheiro Braathen also failed to finish in the second round. The Norwegian, who was starting for Brazil, gave up his lead in the RTL World Cup to Henrik Kristoffersen. The Norwegian, who finished fifth (0.24), is now 38 points ahead of Slovenian Zan Kranjec. Pinheiro Braathen is third, 40 points behind. The best ÖSV runner is Feurstein in seventh place. On Sunday the slalom is on the program in Val d’Isere (10 a.m./1 p.m., live on ORF1).
