French skier Noël leads slalom; Pinturault out after 1st run

VAL d’ISÈRE, France (AP) — French skier Clément Noël set the pace in the opening run of a men’s World Cup slalom Sunday while defending overall champion Alexis Pinturault failed to qualify for the second run.

Noël had an aggressive run on the Face de Bellevarde to build a lead of .12 seconds over Alex Vinatzer of Italy.

Slalom world champion Sebastian Foss-Solevåg of Norway was .17 behind in third.

The rest of the field had more than four-tenths of a second to make up on Noël in the second run.

Pinturault, a two-time winner of the event, was already a second off Noël’s time at the second check point and lost additional time on a tricky passage near the bottom of the course to finish 2.90 behind.

Marco Schwarz, who won the slalom season title last year, also failed to qualify for the second run. Having missed weeks of training due to an ankle injury, the Austrian was 2.53 off the lead.

Schwarz’s teammate Adrian Pertl, last season’s World Championships silver medalist in slalom, missed the race a day after the Austrian injured his knee in a giant slalom.

Marco Odermatt, who won Saturday’s GS and leads the overall standings, does not compete in slalom.

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