Marco wins! Schwarz scores World Cup giant slalom victory with favored Marco Odermatt sixth

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ALTA BADIA, Italy (AP) — Yes, a Marco won the World Cup giant slalom Sunday. Just not the one expected at Alta Badia.

Marco Schwarz was first on the classic Gran Risa course where Marco Odermatt, the dominant skier of his generation, had won five of the past six giant slaloms.

Wearing start bib No. 1, Schwarz got a wire-to-wire win by protecting his first-run lead to finish 0.18 seconds ahead of Lucas Pinheiro Braathen of Brazil.

“This victory means a lot to me,” said Schwarz, who missed almost a full year of racing through injury since his previous win in a slalom in December 2023.

“It’s good for the soul, good for the whole team,” he said, after hugging third-placed Austria teammate Stefan Brennsteiner in the finish area.

Pinheiro Braathen had been the only other racer to win an Alta Badia giant slalom since Odermatt’s winning run started in December 2021. Pinheiro Braathen was racing for Norway in 2022 and later switched to his mother's home nation Brazil, getting its first World Cup win last month in a slalom.

Maybe fatigue caught up with Odermatt after a tough three-day program of speed races at nearby Val Gardena, where since Thursday he won a downhill and was runner-up in a downhill and a super-G.

Odermatt placed sixth Sunday trailing 0.82 behind Schwarz’s two-run time, and showed a rare flash of anger crossing the finish line. Odermatt still has a huge lead in the season-long overall standings chasing a sixth straight title with more than double the points of second-placed Schwarz.

It was the seventh career World Cup win and second in giant slalom for the 30-year-old Schwarz, one of the most all-purpose skiers on the men’s circuit. His previous GS win was in California, at the Palisades Tahoe resort in February 2023.

The race included the first Russian skier in a men's World Cup event for nearly four years since the easing of a ban imposed during the war on Ukraine by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation.

The 35-year-old Aleksander Andrienko was given approved neutral status this month by FIS to resume competing so he could try to qualify for the Milan Cortina Olympics in February.

Given the No. 39 start bib Sunday, Andrienko was 52nd-fastest and more than one second outside the top-30 times that qualify for a second run. Neutral athletes from Russia and Belarus must compete without their national identity of team colors and flag.

Missing from the lineup was Alexander Steen Olsen, who opted this week for season-ending knee surgery because of a persistent injury.

Steen Olsen was a two-time winner in giant slalom on the World Cup circuit last season and shaped as a medal contender at the Olympics. Odermatt is the Olympic champion in giant slalom.

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