Faivre ends World Cup podium drought, taking men's giant slalom in Bulgaria
Victory over fellow Frenchman Pinturault comes 9 days after surprising world title
Mathieu Faivre won a World Cup race for the first time in more than four years on Sunday, earning a pat on the back from French teammate Alexis Pinturault.
Faivre's win came nine days after he took a surprise gold medal in giant slalom at the world championships. Pinturault was favourite in that race but skied out early in his final run, handing the victory to Faivre.
In Sunday's GS, Faivre was simply faster than Pinturault in two runs on the Banderiza course in Bansko, Bulgaria.
Building on a big first-run lead, Faivre finished in 2:25.29, 0.75 seconds ahead of Marco Odermatt of Switzerland, who improved from sixth position.
Faivre also won gold in the parallel event at the worlds but had not triumphed in a World Cup race since his only previous win in Val d'Isere, France, in December 2016.
He came close in Saturday's GS, when he also posted the fastest time in the opening leg before losing his advantage to Filip Zubcic of Croatia in the final run.
WATCH | Mathieu Faivre wins world giant slalom:
Faivre avoided a similar scenario on Sunday and added three-tenths of a second to his lead.
This time Zubcic couldn't threaten his victory. The Croatian skier slid away on his inside ski in a left turn and finished more than three second off the lead after the opening run, though he still finished 14th following an outstanding final run.
With two races remaining, Pinturault leads Odermatt by 25 points, with Zubcic 64 behind in third.
Pinturault and Odermatt are also 1-2 in the overall standings.
The men's World Cup moves to Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria, for three speed races from Friday through Sunday.
The events were rescheduled from Kvitfjell in response to anti-coronavirus measures from the Norwegian government.
