Austria’s Stefan Brennsteiner was second at half-time and was aiming for bronze when he fell after a mistake. Manuel Feller also failed. Raphael Haaser was the best Austrian in eleventh place.
The onset of winter in the Chinese mountains northwest of Beijing initially led to “borderline” conditions in the first RTL run. But Brennsteiner mastered the challenge brilliantly, was even clearly ahead of Odermatt at the second split time and was ultimately second at half-time only 4/100 seconds behind the top favorite from Switzerland. Third was Frenchman Mathieu Faivre (+0.08). Of course, the failure rate was enormous, of 89 runners on the start list only 54 made it into the ranking.
Feller was seventh (+0.74) despite some problems at half-time. Haaser (17th / +2.06) and Marco Schwarz (18th / +2.11), on the other hand, were too far behind to be able to intervene in the medal decision. Haaser improved to eleventh place in his third and last Olympic race. The world championship third Schwarz was 14th and is now trying to finally find the lost “flow” until the slalom on Wednesday.
Feller initially had a few critical sentences ready because of the dangerous conditions. He would have preferred a postponement to Sunday. The Tyrolean, who was plagued by Corona and quarantine, went “all in” when deciding on material and driving style and paid for it with an early failure.
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Another setback for Brennsteiner
The decision at half-time in the tightest Olympic giant slalom in history – the top five were only 19 hundredths apart – had to be postponed by 1:15 hours because heavy equipment was also ordered onto the track due to the slope work. Overall, the runners found better conditions in the second run, but again there were mistakes and sometimes wild falls.
Unfortunately, so did Brennsteiner, who, despite a solid run on course for second place and a medal, got on his own skis and, after the fall, still crossed the finish line with a big deficit. It was another low blow for the 30-year-old from Niedernsill in Oberpinzgau, who has had a very mixed career so far due to several cruciate ligament tears. In the first run, Brennsteiner was even more than half a second ahead of Odermatt by the second split.
However, the Swiss made a time-consuming mistake in the steep upper section. In the final, Odermatt, who won four of the five World Cup races this season and finished second once, set the second-fastest time for victory ahead of Kranjec, who set the best time in the run.
Source: Nachrichten
