Olympic favorite Odermatt wins giant slalom by big margin

LA VILLA, Italy (AP) — Confirming himself as the undisputed favorite for an Olympic gold medal, Swiss skier Marco Odermatt won a World Cup race at Alta Badia by a massive margin Monday for his third victory in four giant slalom races this season.

After leading the opening run in what is traditionally the longest and perhaps toughest giant slalom race of the season, Odermatt finished with a 1.01-second advantage over Luca De Aliprandini of Italy.

Alexander Schmid of Germany finished third, 1.09 behind, as the top three held their positions from the first leg.

Odermatt extended his lead atop the overall standings to a comfortable 228 points over Austrian speed specialist Matthias Mayer.

Odermatt finished second behind Henrik Kristoffersen in another giant slalom on the Gran Risa on Sunday.

“I really wanted to do this today,” said Odermatt, who won six gold medals at the junior world championships. “After the first run I knew that everything is possible. I just tried to push, push, push.”

Kristoffersen finished fourth, missing the podium by two hundredths.

With his sixth win of 2021, the 24-year-old Odermatt became only the third Swiss man with more than five victories in a single calendar year after Pirmin Zurbriggen (9 in 1987, 6 in 1986) and Peter Müller (6 in 1986).

The 31-year-old Aliprandini won the silver medal in giant slalom at last season’s world championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo but had never finished on the podium in a World Cup race.

Schmid’s four previous World Cup podiums had all come in either team or individual parallel races.

The Beijing Olympics open Feb. 4.

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Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf