Alpine skiing: Odermatt fixed Super-G ball with Aspen victory

The Swiss won in Aspen, Colorado, on Sunday and can no longer be caught by his last remaining opponent Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (3./+0.34 sec.) before the alpine ski season finale in Andorra. Second was the German Andreas Sander (+0.05), the Styrian Stefan Babinsky finished fourth (+0.47) with his top result from Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Vincent Kriechmayr, sixth, was a good four tenths off the podium. The Upper Austrian had already been out of the ball race before the penultimate Super-G of the season. Marco Schwarz fell and was not injured. The Carinthian was already behind after a mistake. Daniel Hemetsberger also dropped out. He missed a goal after a line error. Raphael Haaser didn’t see the target either, but escaped with a brief shock in a tricky situation.

The Super-G victory is very important to him, according to Odermatt on ORF: “Every crystal ball is the greatest thing in our sport. It shows that you are the strongest athlete for a whole season, and not just like at a World Cup maybe got the best day.” Kilde congratulated fair. “It’s well deserved. I already had the speed in Super-G, but I made way too many mistakes.”

In the seventh World Cup Super-G of the winter, Odermatt achieved his fifth victory, plus a second and a third place. Only once did he miss the podium – at the World Championships in Courchevel in fourth place. Odermatt extended his already comfortable lead in the overall World Cup on Kilde to 386 points. With six races to go – including three giant slalom runs – Odermatt can hardly take the big ball. In addition, Kilde declared that he would not start for Kranjska Gora’s RTL double.

Babinsky was the only Austrian to end the US tour with a smile on Sunday. “It was a great run, unfortunately I lost a bit of time in the middle part.” It takes risk to be at the forefront. “I’m satisfied, it was racing at a very high level.”

Kriechmayr described sixth place as “much too little”. He adjusted the skis in the middle section like no other athlete. “No conviction at all, it was a poor performance today.” Black wanted too much after a mistake in the upper part. “I wanted to try the crowbar, it was too direct, I couldn’t stand the pressure and I’m out,” said the sixth-placed World Cup player in this discipline.