Marco Odermatt has taken a significant step towards defending his World Cup downhill title this season by leading a Swiss clean sweep on Saturday in the first men’s race post the Milano Cortina Olympic Games. Odermatt’s main rival, Franjo van Allmen, who clinched Olympic gold, did not make it to the podium in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
Odermatt narrowly beat Alexis Monney by 0.04 seconds, while Stefan Rogentin finished 0.98 seconds behind in third place. Vincent Kriechmayr of Austria and Giovanni Franzoni of Italy shared the fourth spot.
Van Allmen encountered errors halfway through his run on the Kandahar course, finishing 1.47 seconds behind in sixth place. Cam Alexander from North Vancouver, B.C., was the highest-ranking Canadian, landing in 14th place, 2.02 seconds behind Odermatt.
With this result, Odermatt has widened his lead over van Allmen to 175 points in the season standings with two races left. A race victory awards 100 points. Odermatt, the two-time defending World Cup downhill champion, expressed satisfaction after what he described as a redemption win, following his fourth-place finish at the Olympics.
The ongoing battle between Odermatt and van Allmen, who are close friends, has been a highlight of the downhill season. Odermatt began with consecutive wins and later triumphed at the prestigious Wengen event, but van Allmen fought back with two victories, including the last race before the Olympics in Crans-Montana.
Odermatt’s 54th career win has tied him with Austrian legend Hermann Maier for the third position on the men’s World Cup winners list. He praised Maier and expressed his joy at reaching the same milestone. Several skiers withdrew from the race following crashes in training, with injuries reported for France’s Nils Alphand and Finland’s Elian Lehto.
The race day concluded with Odermatt’s victory, setting the stage for a super-G event scheduled for the following day on the same course.