Odermatt Wins Fourth World Cup Title Of The Season After Downhill Finale Canceled Due To Weather – News18

SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria: Swiss standout Marco Odermatt earned his fourth World Cup crystal globe of the season Sunday in anticlimactic circumstances as the ultimate race was canceled attributable to dangerous climate.

Odermatt’s first downhill title noticed the 26-yr-previous turn out to be solely the fourth male skier to win 4 classifications in a single season and the primary since Hermann Maier did it in 2001.

“Something very special,” Odermatt mentioned. “I spoke to Hermann two years ago in summer, when I won my first globes and he told me it is cool when you can’t hold all the globes. So I think this will be a good feeling.”

Odermatt locked up his third straight total championship and the large slalom title weeks in the past and lifted the tremendous-G crystal globe on Friday.

The begin of the boys’s downhill on Sunday was initially pushed again a number of occasions due to snow and wind, whereas organisers continued to work on the course in Saalbach, Austria. But it was formally canceled greater than an hour after it was scheduled to begin.

“Unfortunately due to the present weather situation with wind and snowfall affecting the track conditions, to insure the safety of the athletes, todays Men’s DH had been cancelled,” the ski federation mentioned on X, previously Twitter.

The cancellation handed Odermatt one more crystal globe as his 42-level lead over French skier Cyprien Sarrazin, the one man who might catch him within the standings, proved sufficient.

But it denied him the possibility to set a males’s report factors whole. Victory within the downhill would have given Odermatt 100 factors and lifted him 5 factors past his report 2,042 tally set final season.

“For sure it’s very strange to win a globe after such a tight battle with Cyprien,” Odermatt mentioned. “We both would have been ready for every decision. We saw it on the inspection. I’m not sure safety can be guaranteed. It’s a good decision for sure from my side, but I think as well for the sport it was a fair decision. But we would have liked to battle it out.

“It was a strange season with some cancellations but we had a very good January and February, high quality races, very cool medals, and if you are leader going into the final week, you deserve the globe. It was a lot of waiting, but I always felt really good and motivated to race.”

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde had gained the downhill crystal globe the earlier two years however his season was prematurely ended when he was amongst a slew of World Cup, Olympic and world champions to crash onerous in a packed January program.

It was nonetheless a exceptional season for Sarrazin, who gained 4 races. His solely earlier race win was in 2017 and the 29-yr-previous had by no means positioned larger than fifteenth in any classification.

“For safety it was a good decision, so there is no problem,” Sarrazin mentioned concerning the race cancellation. “I wanted to have a fair race and a safe race and that’s how it is. We will enjoy tonight because it was an amazing season.

“I’m really happy. I’m proud of me. I never stopped believing. It was an amazing journey. For the young guys, if they watch me, they can see you never stop believing … I can’t wait to continue the journey.”

Sunday’s climate was a distinction to the ladies’s downhill, which befell beneath blue skies and with a temperature of 15 levels Celsius (59 levels Fahrenheit) the day before today.

Odermatt’s compatriot Lara Gut-Behrami was additionally chasing a quadruple however Cornelia Huetter pipped her to the downhill title for her first crystal globe.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)