Hirscher Wins First Career Parallel Giant Slalom After Winning 6th Straight GS
There aren’t too many things that Austrian Marcel Hirscher hasn’t done in his illustrious career and after today he can check another accomplishment off his list as he won his first career parallel giant slalom.
Under the lights in Alta Badia, where he won the previous giant slalom, Hirscher finally got the elusive parallel giant slalom win, topping surprise finalist Thibaut Favrot (FRA) in the big final. Third place went to Favrot’s teammate Alexis Pinturault, marking the second time in as many days that the French team landed two racers on the podium.
For Favrot, Alta Badia is proving to be a memorable stop on the Audi FIS World Cup tour. Last year he earned his first World Cup points here, while tonight was his first career podium finish.
Pinturault topped last year’s Alta Badia parallel giant slalom winner Matts Olsson of Sweden in the small final.
For Hirscher this marked a second career milestone as he earned his 62nd World Cup victory, which now puts in third place on the all-time victory list, tied with Annemarie Moser-Pröll.
The Audi FIS World Cup tour moves ahead in its intensive December program as the next stop is Saalbach (AUT) for a giant slalom and slalom, both are make-up races; for the cancelled giant slalom in Soelden and the cancelled slalom in Val d’Isere.
The day before, Hirscher won his sixth straight giant slalom in Alta Badia (ITA) as he destroyed the rest of the field winning today’s race by 2.53 seconds.
The French picked up second and third place in a strong team showing. Thomas Fanara, who finished the first run in 12th place, leap-frogged into second place for his first podium finish since 2016. Meanwhile Alexis Pinturault earned his first podium finish of the season, ending in third place.
Hirscher already built up a healthy lead after the first run as he was ahead of Matts Olsson by a solid 0-94 margin. Third place after the first run was the Swiss surprise Marco Odermatt, who ultimately attacked the second run a little too hard and did not finish. Olsson had a disappointing second run and ended in sixth place.
Despite Hirscher’s massive victory margin, his second run was surprisingly only the second fastest on the day. Luca de Alipradini, who finished a distant 28th place in the first run, had the run of his life in the second run,, topping Hirsher’s time by 0.24 seconds, allowing him to climb into seventh place in the final standings.
