Odermatt wins World Cup super-G at Beaver Creek
Los Angeles (AFP) – Marco Odermatt's success at Beaver Creek continued Thursday as the Swiss won the first super-G of the World Cup season on a challenging Birds of Prey course to stretch his lead in the overall standings.
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Odermatt, who notched the first World Cup win of his career in the 2019 super-G at Beaver Creek, avoided any big mistakes on a bumpy piste that posed problems for plenty of skiers.
He clocked 1min 08.61sec and beat Austrian Matthias Mayer by 78-hundredths of a second. Canadian Broderick Thompson was third, 95-hundredths back.
With his sixth career World Cup win, Odermatt made it two in a row on the Colorado slope, since no races were held in North America last season because of the coronavirus pandemic.
He also notched his second win of the season, after a giant slalom victory in Soelden in October.
Odermatt's performance was all the more impressive given a list of skiers who failed to finish that included Austrian Max Franz, and Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde.
It was clear the course would pose a tough challenge when the first two starters, Matthieu Bailet of France and Dominik Paris of Italy, failed to finish.
Mayer, who won the season's first downhill at Lake Louise on Saturday, was the first to post a time, and only Odermatt could better it.
Thompson delivered a dazzing run from the 35th starting position to knock Germany's Andreas Sander off the podium by three-hundredths of a second.
The race was one of four scheduled for Beaver Creek, added after excessive snow at Lake Louise forced cancellation of a super-G and one of two scheduled donwhills last weekend.
In a punishing four-day span another super-G was set for Friday, with downhills scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
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