Odermatt doubles up at FIS World Cup season finale in Soldeu
Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt continued his scintillating alpine ski form by following up Thursday’s Super G victory with a resounding Saturday giant slalom victory at the final FIS World Cup stop of the season in Soldeu as Mathilde Gremaud, Ester Ledecká and Fanny Smith also earned wins on the weekly FIS circuit.
Odermatt clocked 1:23.91 on Thursday to bank his sixth Super G victory out of eight races this season in winning his first Super G title with Austrian Marco Schwarz second, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde third, Italy’s Dominik Paris seventh, Frenchman Alexis Pinturault 11th and Swiss Loïc Meillard 16th.
Odermatt finished the 2022/2023 Super G standings on a mighty 740 points with Kilde second on 512, Vincent Kriechmayr third on 335 and 2020/2021 overall champion Pinturault ending in fifth place.
Odermatt followed up with a resounding giant slalom victory by 2.11s on Saturday with Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen second and Schwarz in third, the Swiss ending the GS season on 840 points with Kristoffersen on 660 as Pinturault finished eighth and Meillard 10th on the day.
In Wednesday’s men’s downhill, Paris finished in fifth place an impressive 0.27s behind winner Kriechmayr with Odermatt in 15th and Pinturault in 24th place.
Norwegian Kilde duly earned a second successive FIS World Cup downhill title with 760 points leaving Austrian Kriechmayr in second place on 614 and 25-year-old overall champion Odermatt back in third on 462.
In the women’s downhill, Italian Sofia Goggia finished second behind Slovenian Ilka Stuhec with Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami third after Goggia had already claimed a fourth downhill title before the Soldeu finale.
On Sunday, Kristoffersen finished third behind Swiss winner Ramon Zenhaeusern and Norwegian rival Lucas Braathen in the final men’s slalom with Italian Alex Vinatzer in fifth, Pinturault 10th and Meillard 13th as Frenchman Clément Noël failed to finish. The podium result meant Braathen held off Kristoffersen for his first FIS World Cup title by 52 points.
Wednesday also saw women’s parallel giant slalom snowboard action in Rogla, Slovenia as Czech star Ledecká finished second on her return from November collarbone surgery behind Austrian Sabine Schoeffmann with Japan’s Tsubaki Miki third.
On Saturday, Ledecká went one better than Wednesday when she easily won the women’s parallel snowboard slalom from German Ramona Theresia Hofmeister with compatriot Cheyenne Loch third.
On Friday, Switzerland’s Smith won the women’s ski cross at Craigleith in Canada to go second overall with home skiers Courtney Hoffos and Marielle Thompson in second and third respectively.
Swiss skier Gremaud put together a brilliant run of 96.25 on Saturday to win the women’s freeski slopestyle in Tignes with Norwegian Johanne Killi second and Canadian Megan Oldham third, while Swede Jesper Tjäder earned second behind Norway’s Birk Ruud and Swiss Andri Raglettli third.
Header image: Marco Odermatt (SUI) performs during FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup. Credit: Erich Spiess / Red Bull Content Pool
