ADELBODEN, Switzerland (AP) — Marco Odermatt’s dominant
season in World Cup giant slalom delivered Switzerland the win it craved after a 14-year wait in its classic home race on Saturday.
At the limit of his balance skiing down the steep final slope, Odermatt hung on to his morning lead to be 0.48 seconds faster than Manuel Feller, who soared from fifth place with the fastest second run.
Alexis Pinturault was third, 0.54 back, and conceded more points to World Cup leader Odermatt in the defense of his overall title.
Odermatt is the first Swiss winner of the storied Adelboden giant slalom since 2008 when Marc Berthod won.
His winning run was cheered to the finish by more than 10,000 noisy fans who were absent last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 24-year-old emerging star also joined Alpine ski greats Jean-Claude Killy, Ingemar Stenmark, Ted Ligety and Marcel Hirscher as the only men to win at least four of the first five giant slaloms in a World Cup season.
Odermatt is the runaway leader in the season-long giant slalom standings, ahead of Feller, by earning 100 more race points Saturday.
He also leads the overall standings by a big margin of 376 from Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, the 2020 champion who skipped the Adelboden meeting. Odermatt will not race in a slalom scheduled Sunday.