Marcel Hirscher locks up World Cup giant slalom title with 1 race left to go
Erik Reid the top Canadian finisher in 16th
Marcel Hirscher locked up the men's World Cup giant slalom title with a race to spare on Saturday, underlining his ongoing dominance of the discipline.
The Olympic GS champion from Austria won the penultimate event of the season for his 56th career victory, giving him an insurmountable 125-point lead in the GS standings over Norwegian rival Henrik Kristoffersen. A win is worth 100 points.
And Hirscher did so in style, posting the fastest times in both runs. He finished in two minutes 20.76 seconds, beating runner-up Kristoffersen by 1.66 seconds. Alexis Pinturault of France was more than 2 ½ seconds off the pace in third.
Erik Reid was Canada's top finisher in 16th, and Trevor Philp placed 28th.
"I am very happy that it happened today," said Hirscher, adding he wasn't expecting to wrap up the title on Saturday, a day after he turned 29.
"To me this comes as a little bit as a surprise as I haven't been thinking about it. I was just thinking about the race. Normally you would need the calculator only in two weeks' time," he said, referring to the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden.
Hirscher winning the race, however, was everything but a surprise.
The Austrian has won eight of the last 10 World Cup giant slaloms and reached the podium of the other two. The last time he failed to finish in the top three was when he placed fifth at the season-ending GS in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in March 2016.
'Marcel is in his own league'
"Marcel is in his own league," Kristoffersen said. "It's OK at the moment, it's OK that Marcel wins the globe. He is the best racer."
Kristoffersen trailed Hirscher by 0.73 seconds after the opening run. The Norwegian tried to put pressure on his Austrian rival with an all-attacking second run, but a misjudged turn halfway down the course slowed him.
"I had a big mistake in the middle part, really big. And the course is not steep after that so I had no speed. If you have such a mistake, you have no chance against Marcel," the Norwegian said.
It was Hirscher's fourth straight GS title and fifth in total, matching American Ted Ligety's tally. Only Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark won the trophy more times — eight.
Working his way back from knee and back injuries, Ligety hasn't won a race since October 2015. On Saturday, he missed a gate and went out before the first split time of his opening run.
Apart from dominating GS, Hirscher was also expected to also wrap up the slalom title this weekend as he will enter Sunday's race with a 144-point lead over Kristoffersen.
And, more importantly, the Austrian is also on the brink of an unprecedented seventh straight overall championship.
Leading Kristoffersen by 269 points, Hirscher won't be able to officially claim the big crystal globe on Sunday with six races still to go. However, unless Kristoffersen starts competing in other events than slalom and GS, he will be left with just two more chances to score points after the weekend.
Weirather takes over women's lead
Tina Weirather won a World Cup super-G Saturday to overtake Lara Gut for first place in the discipline's standings with one race left.
The Olympic bronze medallist from Liechtenstein overtook Gut to go top of the standings. Weirather will carry a 46-point lead over her Swiss rival, who finished the race in seventh, into the final event on March 15 at the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden.
Weirather won the globe for the best super-G racer last season, edging Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia by five points. Set for another close showdown with Gut, Weirather called winning the trophy again "very important."
"It's the biggest prize you can win in our sport," she said. "This means more than an Olympic medal, which is just one race and where luck always plays a part. But a globe is never a matter of luck."
On a shortened course due to weather conditions, Weirather timed 1 minute, 2.17 seconds to beat Olympic silver medallist Anna Veith of Austria by 0.36. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland trailed by 0.38 in third for her career best super-G result. Gut finished 0.59 off the lead.
The surprise gold medallist from the Pyeongchang Olympics, Ester Ledecka of Czech Republic, didn't compete as she started in a snowboard parallel giant slalom in Turkey.
Also, overall World Cup leader Mikaela Shiffrin and her American teammate Lindsey Vonn both sat out the race. Shiffrin was preparing for next week's technical races in Ofterschwang, Germany, while Vonn will only race again at the finals.