Felix Neureuther made it two wins on the bounce as he became the first Giant Slalom winner from Germany for forty years. Thomas Fanara used the envious start number 1 to awesome effect to place second ... after having lead the first run and Marcel Hirscher took a step closer to recapturing the Giant Slalom World Cup Globe in taking third.
The soft conditions were not to the benefit of many of the racers and Thomas Fanara used the Number 1 bib to great effect as he took a huge first run lead. At Alta Badia, Ligety had jokingly mentioned that someone was softening the snow to slow him down. In Adelboden he again had to contend with soft snow and was off the pace on the first run before bouncing and crashing into a gate on the second run. Ligety's ski deprived him of making the finish and with Hirscher taking third, Ligety now has a battle if he is to retain his Giant Slalom Globe as World Cup Champion.
Neureuther has now beaten Hirscher in back to back races for the first time in his career. The friendship between the two is well known but now Neureuther is starting to beat Hirscher where it hurts: On the World Cup. First it was Bormio and now Adelboden. The friendship will remain strong even if the competitiveness has been racked up a notch!
“It was very difficult on the top I wanted to push hard. I didn't make any mistakes but the slope was tough,” said Fanara. Â “This is like a game and today Felix was the best, that's part of playing. It was a little bit of a case losing first place and winning second place all at the same time. The victory was so close, but at the same time I told myself that second place is also like a victory for today.”
Full results