Hirscher continues his winning run in Adelboden
Marcel Hirscher did not let the deteriorating conditions hinder his assault on the skiing world as he won his third race in four days, he is unbeaten in 2012. Having shared the lead with Christian Deville after the first run, Hirscher was first of the leaders to go down and put the pressure on the Italian by posting a fast time. With Hirscher in the lead ahead of Kostelic and Dopfer, the pressure was on Deville and from the off he struggled. With the cloud coming in and the snow falling, Deville was soon making small mistakes and as these mounted up so too did the time and it was soon over. Hirscher extends his lead in the overall having scored 300 unanswered points over the leader at the New Year, Aksel Lund Svindal.
With third placed Felix Neureuther disqualified after the first run for a hard to detect straddle, seven hundredths separated the top three after the first run. Adelboden has served up some close racing this year and the first run was another tight affair. With Dani Albrecht serving as a forerunner on the second run, it was young Italian Roberto Nani who got the race proper off on the second run. By the time Giuliano Razzoli, the Olympic Champion, had crashed out of 15th place from the first run, it was starting to turn into a race of numbers: 6 had crashed out, 5 had come down into the lead and four, well they had got down in a place other than the lead.
Alexis Pinturault had put in another storming second run and was in the lead yet the weather was starting to close in and this would start to affect the racers. JB Grange took the lead yet it was becoming harder and harder to attack as you needed to ski smooth, relax and the mixture of the flat light, falling snow and icy base was causing all sorts of problems for the racers.
Grange is one of the best slalom skiers on his day but has had a miserable season so far: his best result has been 7th. Yet on this run, while not a classic Grange run, he took the bull by the horns and grabbed the lead. He would hold it until Stefano Gross from Italy came down with 8 to go.
With Hargin and Moelgg making more mistakes than clean turns, Steve Missillier then crashed out leaving the young Italian to start thinking about the podium. Kostelic removed all hope of him taking a win as the Croatian put in a fantastic second run. Gross may have had the fastest second run time but Kostelic was ahead overall. Would this be enough?
Knowing that he was just behind the leading pair, Mario Matt charged into the second run. His crouched up style does not leave much when the conditions are as bad as they were by now. A few small errors crept in and the Austrian dropped to third.
Hirscher then took to the course. Hirscher knew that the Croatian had had an unbelievable run and he was OK with this. “Some do not like to know how others have done,” he explained afterwards, “but you have to be pretty deaf to not know how others have done when the crowd are as loud as they are here.” Kostelic, watching in the finish knew that “if he can stay in the lead to the second split then he would win.” By the time Hirscher crossed the line on the second run, the clock showed that he was a little over a quarter of a second ahead. Hirscher had extended the lead by a hundredth.
Deville was in the start and the pressure started to show from the first gates. Mistakes came in and coming off the steep Deville let the skis run in an attempt to try and make the time up that he had lost. It was not to be and he crashed out missing the final few gates.
So Hirscher continues to dominate the racing. 300 points in 2012 has put him in a great position for the Overall. Yet with a series of Downhill races and speed events coming up, Svindal et al will be looking to claw some points back.
Talk of the demise for the Austrian team may be a little premature but in Marcel Hirscher, this half Dutch, half Austrian is setting the racing world alive. “We were racing on the limit today in terms of the weather,” explained Hirscher.
Kostelic and Raich may not quite be willing to hand over the baton of supremacy yet Hirscher may be grabbing it off them with both hands!
