A man who once considered himself the greatest in his sport was watching the actual greatest in skiing: Zlatan Ibrahimovic was sitting in the Kitzbühel stadium when Marco Odermatt raced across the finish line and the green one flashed almost as ordered. At the start of the skiing madness on the Hahnenkamm, the Swiss won the Super-G race, although an Austrian almost defeated him. There were also quite a few injuries.
The race had to be interrupted several times due to numerous crashes. The former overall World Cup winner and world champion Alexis Pinturault from France fell in a left-hand bend. The 33-year-old recently made his comeback after a long injury break. Like his teammate Florian Loriot, he was transported away by helicopter. Like many others, Loriot crashed in the Pinturault corner, and a total of 14 of the 57 riders were eliminated.
In the end, Raphael Haaser from Innsbruck was eleven hundredths of a second behind Odermatt. No home win, and yet Ski Austria breathed a sigh of relief. A podium place, as they say here in Tyrol, was not necessarily to be expected after the nation’s best speed driver Vinzent Kriechmayer withdrew from the start for health reasons. However, very few would have expected that Haaser, of all people, would close the gap. The 27-year-old had strained his cruciate ligament in the giant slalom in Val d’Isere in mid-December and only decided to start in “Kitz” on Thursday after passing performance tests.
Odermatt’s teammate Stefan Rogentin came third (+0.30). Romed Baumann ended up in 21st place as the best starter for the German Ski Association, the second German rider Luis Voigt came in 28th with a high start number and secured at least three World Cup points.
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