CHAMONIX, France — Olympic champion Clement Noel led a men’s World Cup slalom after the opening run Sunday as the Frenchman seeks his first win in more than a year.
Noel posted the fastest times in the last two sections of the Verte course to beat Timon Haugan of Norway by 0.23 seconds.
Manuel Feller was 0.40 behind in third. The Austrian triumphed in three of the previous six slaloms to lead the discipline standings.
Linus Strasser, who won the last two slaloms in Kitzbuehel and Schladming, was 17th with the German having 1.24 to make up on Noel in the second run later Sunday.
“It was a solid run. When I crossed the finish line, I was quite sure it was a good run,” said Noel, who has 10 career victories but only one since winning Olympic gold in Beijing two years ago.
“My first part was not that good, but it was like a little bit on purpose, just to be solid and try not to do something crazy in the beginning,” he said. “And then I tried to push at the bottom, and it pays off.”
Noel also led after the opening run of a night slalom at Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, last December but ultimately finished runner-up to Marco Schwarz.
That result sent Schwarz top of the overall standings, but the Austrian sustained a season-ending knee injury at a downhill the following week.
The slalom in Chamonix, the resort at the base of the Mont Blanc that hosted the first Winter Olympics in 1924, was the only World Cup ski race taking place this weekend.
Two men’s downhills in Chamonix and women’s speed races in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, were all canceled amid poor snow conditions.
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