Olympic favorite Odermatt wins Alta Badia giant slalom by big margin

LA VILLA, Italy (AP) — Confirming himself as the undisputed favorite for an Olympic gold medal, Swiss skier Marco Odermatt won a World Cup race at Alta Badia by a massive margin Monday for his third victory in four giant slalom races this season.

After leading the opening run in what is traditionally the longest and perhaps toughest giant slalom race of the season, Odermatt finished with a 1.01-second advantage over Luca De Aliprandini of Italy.

“I don’t have a time on my goggle to see how much you have to push,” Odermatt said. “I knew I had a little advantage from the first run but I didn’t know how fast Luca was. I just heard that he’s in front. So I knew I had to push again.”

Alexander Schmid of Germany finished third, 1.09 behind, as the top three held their positions from the first leg.

Odermatt extended his lead atop the overall standings to a comfortable 228 points over Austrian speed specialist Matthias Mayer.

Odermatt finished second behind Henrik Kristoffersen in another giant slalom on the Gran Risa on Sunday.

“I really wanted to do this today,” said Odermatt, who won six gold medals at the junior world championships. “After the first run I knew that everything is possible. I just tried to push, push, push.”

Kristoffersen finished fourth, missing the podium by two hundredths.

Despite being injured from a fall a day earlier, American racer River Radamus came in 10th for his third top-10 finish in four GS races this season.

With his sixth win of 2021, the 24-year-old Odermatt became only the third Swiss man with more than five victories in a single calendar year after Pirmin Zurbriggen (9 in 1987, 6 in 1986) and Peter Müller (6 in 1986).

It’s been a challenging stretch for Odermatt, who was one of the few GS skiers who also competed on the speed side in Val Gardena last week.

“I’m really tired but with results like this it’s really easy,” Odermatt said.

The 31-year-old Aliprandini won the silver medal in giant slalom at last season’s world championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo but had never finished on the podium in a World Cup race.

“I dedicate this win to myself, my coaches and to my girlfriend, who had a tough summer,” said Aliprandini, who lives with Swiss skier Michelle Gisin, the Olympic champion in combined. “This will surely give her some energy.

“Last season, the turning point was here in Alta Badia when I went out after the third gate,” Aliprandini added. “The pressure of landing on the podium was weighing me down. I took a break then to reflect and I told myself that I didn’t need to demonstrate anything to anyone. I began enjoying everything more and not just racing for results and then the results came.”

Schmid’s four previous World Cup podiums had all come in either team or individual parallel races.

The Beijing Olympics open Feb. 4.

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