Odermatt wins Cortina d’Ampezzo super-G for 2nd win in 2 days

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Swiss skier Marco Odermatt dealt best with a tricky course to win a men’s World Cup super-G Sunday for his second victory in two days.

Marco Odermatt continues to show that he is the best male ski racer on the circuit. When a course offers many complex puzzles, the best have more opportunities to create separation. Their skill sets are more complete and they have a better tool to use in difficult sectors. The complexity of today’s course almost guaranteed the World Cup overall leader would win. However, the likelihood of an Odermatt victory was significantly increased when his primary rival Aleksander Aamodt Kilde skied off course in the third sector.

Odermatt was far from clean on the challenging Olympia delle Tofane course and just made it through a tough section about 30 seconds into the run. Skiers came over a roll and approached a double left turn, where many were going too fast to make the next gate.

“It was on the limit. It was a very difficult turn to get the timing right. During course inspection, everyone saw it a bit differently,” Odermatt said.

Paris earns first podium of the season

Notably, today provided the season’s first podium for Italian superstar Dominik Paris. Paris ran first and although no one could ski the day’s race without mistakes, he delivered the best run of his season. He was the only athlete with a time within a second of Odermatt. He was second but (+0.76) behind the winner. Paris is a champion and today, he used his considerable power to ski well in every sector.

Rounding out the podium was Austrian Daniel Hemetsberger. He finished third a considerable (+1.03) off the Odermatt pace. It was, however, a very closely fought battle for the final step on the podium. Hemetsberger was only (-0,07) ahead of sixth place Alexis Pinturault.

The Swiss set the course and today’s big story is the Olympia delle Tofane Cortina race hill. When set appropriately this Italian slope is a complete examination of the skill sets of the very best. Plenty of difficult jumps and turns combined with high-speed gliding sections. As it did yesterday, the course provided a significant challenge. It used high-velocity sectors that transitioned into tricky turns. To succeed, racers needed good skiing, aggression and an intelligent tactical approach. After the first 20 athletes had left the start gate, six of them were unable to finish. After 30 had skied, there were 33%, 10 on the list of those who did not finish. At the end of the race, 21 racers, 35%, did not finish the race.

This situation is a good opportunity for higher bib numbers to score World cup points. Uniquely, of the 39 finishers, only nine who crossed the finish line did not score World Cup super-G points.

With points and nominations to the World Championship teams on the line, it was known that racers would push to and beyond their limits. Unfortunately, one who pushed beyond his limit was Canadian Trevor Philp. Philp left the slope in a rescue toboggan.

It was a difficult day for the North Americans. Although Canada had five athletes in the points and the US had two, both teams had difficulty solving the challenges of the course. It was a day that 77% of the skiers who finished scored. Today, the Canadian racers who scored were Brodie Seger, 16th; Cameron Alexander, 20th; Jeffrey Read, 23rd; Riley Seger, 25th and Broderick Thompson, 27th. The US athletes to earn points were Kyle Negomir, 28th, and Bryce Bennett, 29th.

“I think today was a lot of tricks and traps in the course, so you had to be pretty careful. I was probably a good bit too careful,” said Negomir. “But, I executed the hard sections well and I think you, at a bare minimum, you need that to make it down today.”

A slalom in Chamonix, France, next Saturday is the last men’s World Cup race before the Feb. 6-19 world championships in Courchevel.

Analysis of the fastest three, North Americans it the top 30 and top 30 results.

Top 30 results from the Cortina d’Ampezzo January 29th super-G results.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This is a developing story, stay tuned for updates.