Kristoffersen back on top

On the last day of a very busy month of January for the men’s slalom racers, a familiar face made his way back to the top of the podium as Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen earned his second Audi FIS Ski World Cup slalom victory this season.

Kristoffersen has been plagued by inconsistency the last two seasons. When he brings his A-game he’s virtually unstoppable, but when he’s off his game the consequences are big. Today it was clear his A-game was in play as he went into the second run with the 0.23 second lead over Alexis Pinturault and was one of the few athletes who was able to conquer the rough conditions in the second run.

The snow continued to soften the longer the race went on and it was clear that having the better first run was not an advantage by the time the top-10 were ready to race. Of the top-10 from the first run, only three maintained their place, the rest all finished well down the ranking list.

The conditions once again were an advantage to the Swiss, who finished with Ramon Zenhaeursern in second place 0.28 back and Sandro Simonet in third 0.66 off the winning pace. It was Zenhaeursern’s second consecutive second-place finish after he moved up from 11th place into  podium range after turning in the second fastest second run.

But the story of the day was Simonet, who barely made it into the second run, finishing in 30th place. Much like his teammate Luca Aerni who improved 25 places in yesterday’s race, Simonet’s early run proved to be unbeatable by the rest of the field as his time proved to be the best of the second run a leaped him up 27 places into third place. It was his first career podium.

The men’s tech skiers can breathe a sigh of relief after a packed month of January. They can enjoy a weekend off and focus on the upcoming FIS World Ski Championships in Cortina. But the men’s World Cup will have one last stop before the World Championships, with the traditional speed weekend in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.