ADELBODEN, Switzerland — Swiss ski star Marco Odermatt is unstoppable in giant slaloms and proved it again Saturday racing through fog at his home World Cup classic.
Odermatt dominated in a wire-to-wire win at Adelboden to join skiing greats Ingemar Stenmark and Hermann Maier by winning in three straight years on the storied Chuenisbärgli course that is a rolling cow pasture in summer.
He celebrated with a body-surfing leap onto the finish-area safety barrier, sliding across the padded fence on his back.
Odermatt added to his huge 1.04-second lead from the first run to finish 1.26 ahead of Aleksander Aamodt Kilde. Filip Zubcic was third, trailing Odermatt by 1.77.
Kilde already was assured of a career-best result in giant slalom as he smiled and laughed in the finish area watching Odermatt’s peerless run and exuberant celebration.
Odermatt sealed victory in worsening visibility yet his second-run time was beaten only by River Radamus of the United States who finished fourth after placing 20th in the first run.
“It was amazing,” Odermatt said. “It was obviously not an easy nice race today.”
Fog sitting across the top of the Chuenisbärgli hill forced organizers to shorten a course that typically takes about 1 minute, 20 seconds to a 58-second run.
A 29th career win in World Cup races for the 26-year-old Odermatt was an 18th in his preferred giant slalom discipline - including seven in a row since March - where he is the current Olympic, world, and World Cup champion.
Odermatt extended his lead in the overall World Cup standings as the strong favorite for a third straight season-long title. The 2020 overall champion Kilde is his nearest, and distant, active challenger after Marco Schwarz suffered a season-ending knee injury in downhill last month while leading the standings.
The Adelboden giant slalom has been a World Cup fixture since the first week of men’s racing in January 1967.
In those 67 years, only Stenmark and Maier won Switzerland’s signature giant slalom in at least three straight years. Stenmark won four in a row through 1982 and Maier won all three that could be raced between 1998 and 2001.
Odermatt’s 18 World Cup giant slalom wins is tied for fifth all time, with Stenmark far ahead on 46. Ted Ligety of the United States is third on the career list with 24 wins.
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