Schwarz wins Austria’s first 2023 GS in Palisades Tahoe

Palisades Tahoe: USA – Notably, mild-mannered Austrian Marco Schwarz delivers his country’s first GS victory of the 2022-23 season. Schwarz skis all the events and has had a great year but had yet to win. On a hill and course that demanded the racers’ very best, he was the 26th athlete to ski the second run and produced the fastest final run time to move up four positions and earn the podium’s top step. This time it was Schwarz who was better than the rest.

It was Schwarz’s first World Cup win since a slalom race on Jan. 26, 2021, at Schladming, Austria.

Although Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt made uncharacteristic mistakes, he was third fastest in the afternoon and ended 2nd (+0.03) behind Schwarz. Odermatt has now been on the podium in each of the last 14 World Cup giant slalom races he’s started.

Having a men’s ski race without a Norwegian on the podium doesn’t feel right. Saturday, it was bib 17, Rasmus Windingstad. He skied the fourth-quickest final run to finish the day with his season’s first podium. He shared the top six positions with two of his teammates, Henrik Kristoffersen and Lucas Braathen. The Norwegians also had five skiers end the day with points.

Given the challenges of Palisades Tahoe course preparation, the reasonable second-run solution was to ‘redress’ the first course. In that situation, the course is similar but adds width between gates. Especially when an athlete’s legs are tired from the first run, the redress approach adds significant difficulty. Consequently, this GS was a substantial test of the best skiers in the world.

Unfortunately, US’s River Radamus could not correctly navigate a problematic piece of terrain and skied off course at the top of the course. However, George Steffey, the former US Ski Team athlete now skiing with the independent Global Racing, was able to ski well and score his first World Cup points. Steffey has had an exceptional year on the Europa Cup and will now be top 60 on the World Cup start list creating an additional GS quota spot for the US. Additionally, Canadian Erik Read finished the day 15th.

Steffey shared some after-race thoughts, “First run was good. I skied well at the top, not quite as well at the bottom, but I was really psyched to finally qualify for the afternoon run. It was especially great to have my first time being at home.” Steffey continued, “it’s a huge, huge weight off my shoulders. I’ve been trying to crack into the top 30 for a long time, several years now. So, I’m really psyched to finally do it and super grateful to do it for the first time at home.”

Notably, it isn’t possible to acknowledge the efforts of all the hard-working course workers enough. The effort required to execute today’s race was above and beyond spectacular. It was a true indication of the desire of the Palisades Tahoe community to hold a great race.

Race results and Analysis of the fastest three and North Americans in the top 30

Analysis of the fastest three and North Americans in the top 30