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Marco Odermatt was a happy man driving back home on Sunday evening after celebrating another significant fifth victory in giant slalom on the demanding “Gran Risa” course to become the most successful Swiss alpine ski racer on the men’s World Cup tour with his 41st win in the afternoon, one more than Skiing Legend Pirmin Zurbriggen, one of the greatest characters on the World Cup tour in the 1980s.

France’s Leo Anguenot finished a surprising 2nd ahead of Norway’s Alexander Steen-Olsen, the impressive winner at Soelden in October.

The next day, the Norwegian team enjoyed a historical day in the slalom! 53 years after Erik Haker's first win in a giant slalom at Val d'Isère, Timon Haugan celebrated on the sun bathed slalom slope the 200th victory for the Norwegian men's team in a World Cup race, crushing the rest of the field in the spectacular Alta Badia slalom.

The 27-year-old Scandinavian, clearly beat the rest of the field with Swiss Loic Meillard taking 2nd place at 1.13 seconds while Atle Lie McGrath was 3rd, just ahead of a former winner at Alta Badia, Henrik Kristoffersen. The reigning slalom World Champion kept the lead in the slalom standings.

Marco out of reach.

At only 27, Odermatt reached another memorable landmark during those Italian stages with his first triumph on Saturday in a downhill at Val Gardena before dominating once again his rivals the next day in Alta Badia. He became the first champion ever able to achieve that impressive performance in those two famous races.

Within a month and seven competitions, Odermatt amassed an impressive total of six podium finishes including four wins in three different specialties. No surprise that he also took over the lead in the overall World Cup standings before traveling home for a few days. “I’ll for sure remember that weekend for a long time, this 41st victory means a lot to me as Pirmin Zurbriggen has been my role model for a long time, my father also greatly admired him when he was younger,” Odermatt explained afterwards.

“Today’s competition was quite a fight, especially in the morning leg as the course conditions were really challenging. It was very tough and my main goal was to simply get down without any major trouble. The slope was in good shape in the afternoon and this allowed me to take greater risks again,” explained Odermatt who achieved quite a stunning performance clocking the fastest time in that final run despite the rough course. With his five wins on the "Gran Risa", he is now only one victory away from Austria’s Skiing Legend Marcel Hirscher who captured that race six times in a row from 2013 to 2018. This season, the reigning GS World Champion is again aiming to win during the same season the four most prestigious giant slalom races on the tour – Val d’Isère, Alta Badia, Adelboden and Kranjska Gora! He was the first to accomplish this amazing “Tour de Force” during the 2022/23 season…

A strong Norwegian slalom team.

Timon Haugan became the third Norwegian champion to enjoy a victory this season after Alexander Steen Olsen at Soelden and Henrik Kristoffersen last week at Val d'Isère while McGrath reached his third podium since the season started at Soelden.

9th and 11th in the previous slalom races at Levi in Finland and Val d'Isère, Timon was racing with another attitude this time after scoring a solid 5th place in Sunday's GS. "My goal at the beginning of the season was to fight for the slalom globe but after my disappointing results in past weeks, I decided to try having some fun instead. I wanted to make the best out of today's rough conditions," he explained afterwards.

"I really felt inspired by the demanding snow conditions and this tough course, to do well on this legendary Gran Risa slope means a lot to me. It's definitely a great moment for me, I'm very thankful to all the people who helped me to make it happen," also said the racer from Oppdal, who turns 28 on December 27th.

"I was very confident after setting the fastest time in the first run, and I knew what I had to do in the afternoon... It was very exciting to fight as hard as possible," added with a smile the winner in slalom at the Finals at Saalbach last spring.

Luc Meillard, reaching his third podium of the season moving from 8th to 2nd place thanks to his very aggressive second leg, felt as a winner on the podium next to his Norwegian rivals. It was his 24th podium result on the World Cup tour. “It's great to reach that podium, what a beautiful Christmas gift for me. I didn't expect it this morning during warm-up as I feel again some strong pain in my back since yesterday's tough race,” he commented.

"I was not aiming for more than a top-10 today, and I was quite conservative this morning as I couldn't put all needed pressure on my skis. Then, at the start of the second run I decided to forget my pain and ski as hard as I could before our Christmas break," the Swiss also explained “I'm now eager to race the upcoming January classics to fight for more.”

Patrick Lang