'Magical' victory for Braathen as Norway's slalom dominance continues

Minutes after dominating a world-class field at Val d'Isère on Sunday for his second career World Cup slalom win, Norway's Lucas Braathen wanted nothing more than to head straight back to the top of the mountain.

"Man, I just want to do it again," the 22-year-old said after a blistering second run gave him victory in the first slalom race of the season by 0.84 seconds over Austria's Manuel Feller, with Switzerland's Loic Meillard claiming third.

In second place after the first run, Braathen threw down the gauntlet to first run leader and teammate Henrik Kristoffersen with the fastest second run of the field to vault into the lead.

Skiing last and looking to win the season-opening slalom for the fourth time in his career, Kristoffersen's poised first run gave way to a second run littered with errors up and down the course and he fell to sixth, handing Braathen the victory.

"It's an amazing feeling right now," Braathen said. "I'll admit I've had a great pre-season, to be able to deliver what I've been delivering in practice today at the race was simply amazing.

"I love this place so to be here on the top of the podium today is just magical."

Braathen's victory gave the deep Norwegian technical team a national record of five straight men's World Cup slalom wins, following two triumphs by Kristoffersen and two by Atle Lie McGrath in the last four races of last season.

While Braathen wanted to go back up the mountain after the race, second-placed Feller was happy just to have made it to the bottom of the Face de Bellevarde piste, where he had registered five consecutive slalom DNFs heading into Sunday's race.

"It's more like a hate and love place combined because I think this was my second finish in slalom over all of the years," Feller said.

"I was just finishing in my second World Cup race (23rd place in 2012), my first time here, and then always DNF. So that was also the reason why I didn't risk everything in the second run."

He risked enough to cap off a stellar weekend which also saw him finish second in Saturday's giant slalom behind Swiss star Marco Odermatt.

Meillard came from fifth after the first run to move up two places and sneak onto the podium after Kristoffersen's wild second run, while Sweden's Kristoffer Jakobsen finished fourth from a bib number of 20 and home favourite Alexis Pinturault was fifth.

On a steep course topped with fresh overnight snow, first-run straddles ended the hopes of several contenders, including McGrath, Olympic slalom champion Clement Noël (FRA) and Olympic slalom silver medallist Johannes Strolz (AUT).

Some less established skiers enjoyed encouraging results, however, led by 23-year-old Italian Tobias Kastlunger, who came from a start number of 67 to finish 10th and register the first World Cup points of his career.

Skiing fifth in the second run, Kastlunger claimed the provisional lead after recording what would be the second-fastest time of the run behind only Braathen, and then made himself comfortable in the leader's chair while the next 11 skiers failed to dislodge him.

"Seeing the green light was a great feeling," Kastlunger said. "It was really great in the red (leader's) seat and maybe next time again," he laughed.