The Olympic champion from Switzerland was clearly the fastest on Sunday in the first round of the prologue to the new alpine skiing season. He goes into the final from 1:05 p.m. (live ORF 1) with a lead of 0.41 seconds over Norwegian Lucas Braathen. The best of the ÖSV team was Manuel Feller, who was 0.89 behind in fifth place.
“Up and down, I think it was very okay. Three goals were good on the steep slope, then I always screwed up a bit. I have to make sure that I find a little better rhythm in the second one. It’s just a miserably long time steep slope,” said Feller. “The starting position fits.” The Tyrolean also praised the conditions after the women’s race could not take place the day before due to a soft slope and was canceled.
Odermatt made a similar statement. “It was wonderful to be racing again. It’s great what they did with the conditions overnight,” said the dominator of last season, in which he won five giant slalom runs. With numerous volunteers who have been working since Saturday afternoon, the organizer managed to prepare a compact slope. Third was Zan Kranjec from Slovenia (+0.69).
The eagerly awaited first appearance with Marcel Hirscher’s ski brand Van Deer-Red Bull Sports was made by Henrik Kristoffersen with start number 4. The Norwegian is sixth in the second round and said: “Steilhang was really great. I’m fully involved until the second split.” However, Kristoffersen had to cover the company name on his skis because Red Bull’s presence there was apparently not compatible with FIS guidelines. “It’s politics,” said the Red Bull athlete, who was concerned about the death of company founder Dietrich Mateschitz. In the official start list, the place where the ski brand of the respective athlete can be read remained empty for him.
Of the other Austrians, Marco Schwarz (+1.51) and Patrick Feurstein (+1.65) were good at first as 14th and 15th. Matthias Mayer dropped out. “It didn’t work out that way. In the end I made the inside ski mistake again,” regretted the speed specialist.
Source: Nachrichten
