Marco Odermatt held on to be the first Swiss racer to win a Men's World Cup since 2011 as he held his lead from the first run to win from Tommy Ford and the man who likes to attack big time on the second run, Filip Zubcic. Loic Meillard and Alexis Pinturault filled out the top five places.
Conditions had been told for the first run but the deeper things got into the second run, the worse the conditions came with fresh snow falling and deteriorating visibility.
With eight racers to go it was Filip Zubcic who had been in 21st and seemingly out of it after the first run but yet again he produced a run his coach was ecstatic about as he won the run by 0.08 ahead of Atle Lie McGrath with the two of them almost half a second ahead of the rest in terms of second run times.
The advantage that the Croatian had over each racer that challenged him grew yet it took until the fourth last racer before his time was beaten. Loic Millard came close to it but was 0.03 off the time that Zubcic set as he rose 3 places from his first run place.
As more snow fell, it added yet another dimension to each racers challenge. The weather caught out Gino Caviezel as he made the same mistake from the race on Saturday and he dropped off the pace. Like Caviezel, the light and falling snow also caught out Henrik Kristoffersen and out of the reckoning. Three races down in the season and Kristoffersen is struggling in the discipline. A second in the Parallel is his season's best to date.
With the demise of Ted Ligety in the first run, Tommy Ford has raised his game and become a leader in the US Team. Winner in Beaver Creek last year has been backed up by more impressive performances and he was the first to better the time of Zubcic. Ford then stayed in the lead until Odermatt came down, bettering the times of Alexis Pinterurault first and then Leif Kristian Nestvold-Haugen.
From Marco Odermatt to Carlo Janka (Kranjska Gora in 2011) is a long time for a country to wait for a win and you could see the delight in the coaches and Odermatt as he saw a green light. Odermatt winning meant Ford dropped to second and Zubcic took another podium with his impressive second run form.
A first win in GS, almost a year after his first World Cup win in the Super G in Beaver Creek and after the race he admitted that he felt "really emotional, there was big pressure with the red bib and first run lead," he added that he had felt pretty relaxed after first run.
With the win Odermatt closes in on Pinturault in the race for the Overall with Zubcic in second.
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