Alpine skiing
Top star Marco Odermatt easily parried Vincent Kriechmayr’s attack and captured the small crystal ball in the Super-G. For the Swiss, fifth place was enough on Friday at the World Cup final in Saalbach with a triple victory for his teammates to win the Super-G ranking 86 points ahead of Kriechmayr. The Upper Austrian didn’t get past sixth place, 0.76 seconds behind premiere winner Stefan Rogentin.
22.03.2024 12.37
Online since today, 12:37 p.m
For Odermatt it is the second Super-G ball in a row and the third crystal in the current season after successes in the giant slalom and overall World Cup. In the downhill run on Sunday (11.15 a.m., live on ORF1), he could even succeed in the fourth trick as the current leader in the discipline rankings, becoming the third athlete after his compatriot Pirmin Zurbriggen and Hermann Maier.
In this season’s Super-G World Cup, Odermatt, like Kriechmayr, recorded two victories, and three more podium finishes (once second, twice third and never worse than fifth) ultimately decided in his favor. In addition to the victories in Val Gardena and Kvitjell, Kriechmayr recorded two fourth places and a fifth place as his next best results – ultimately not enough for the second small crystal ball of his career.
“What Odermatt showed after me was perhaps the maximum with the number (15),” said Kriechmayr, who had started the race on spring snow immediately before. “I congratulate him on his gigantic season. For me it is a modest season. A bullet was the declared target. I didn’t manage that. There were a few good results, but mostly not that good.”
Swiss triple victory
In addition to Odermatt, Switzerland underlined its current supremacy in the Alpine World Cup in the last Super-G competition of the season. Rogentin relegated his compatriot Loic Meillard to second place by 0.03 seconds at the dress rehearsal for the 2025 World Cup. Arnaud Boisset completed the Swiss triumph in third place (+0.15).
The second best Austrian behind Kriechmayr was Raphael Haaser in 13th place (1.17) – the Tyrolean took third place in the Super-G classification. “It has gone a step further for me. I was very consistent throughout the season and didn’t have any failures. “Nevertheless, there is still a lot of work ahead of me, I still have to do my homework,” said Haaser.
This article accompanies the program “FIS Ski World Cup Super-G for Men Saalbach”, ORF1, March 22, 2024.
