Marcel Hirscher flies to 60th career win in Val d'Isère

La Face de Bellevarde in Val d’Isère is one of the most iconic giant slalom courses on the Audi FIS Ski World Cup Tour. Steep, hard, with a lot of terrain. Even in good conditions, this hill is not easy to ski, so with poor visibility, wind and snowfall, the task gets even trickier.

But there is one athlete that performs no matter the conditions. It’s giant slalom king Marcel Hirscher. Starting with bib number 1, he laid down a time that no one would be able to match. Despite a +0.71 margin, he kept pushing in the second run, to win his 60 World Cup race in career, the 5th giant slalom win in Val d’Isère.

Henrik Kristoffersen came the closest to Hirscher. +1.20 off the pace in the first run, he was able to step up his game in second run to reach another 2nd place. For Kristoffersen, this is the 14th World Cup podium in giant slalom, but he won only once, back in 2015 in Meribel.

In third place, Sweden’s Matts Olsson managed to hold on to his third place of the first run, to claim a fourth podium in career. The giant slalom specialist already has a World Cup win under his belt as he won the parallel giant slalom in Alta Badia last season, but he is still searching his first victory in a classical giant slalom.

The weather forecast for tomorrow’s slalom in Val d’Isère is not very positive, with high winds and heavy snowfall. The course crews from Val d’Isère will be on the hill all night long to prepare the track in the best possible way and ensure a fair slalom race tomorrow.

Results are available here: Val d'Isère GS

Quotes from Marcel Hirscher and Henrik Kristoffersen are available here: Soundcloud