Henrik Kristoffersen made it four race wins on the bounce with victory in the second of the two Giant Slalom races in Kranjska Gora. Kristoffersen finished ahead of Stefan Brennsteiner and first run leader Marco Odermatt. Lucas Braathen and Alexander Schmid rounded out the top five. Britains Charlie Raposo followed up his 27th in the first race with a super impressive 16th, the best result on the World Cup by a British racer in 54 years in Giant Slalom.
The conditions in Kranjska Gora had been fantastic as they allowed later runners the opportunity to attack and challenge. Odermatt had set the challenge on the first run to lead by 0.22 from Alexander Schmid with Kristoffersen in third and Gino Caviezel and Brennsteiner rounding out the top five.
Four racers from outside the top 50 battled their way into the top thirty, including Britain's Charlie Raposo from bib 58, again the highest bib to make the cut for the second successive day. Raposo had put in another strong performance to be in 23rd. Andrej Drukorov from Lithuania battled through as well to make the cut for the first time. There were also some notable racers failing to make the cut: Tommy Ford in his third race back after being out for almost two years the highest ranked racer to miss the cut.
Raposo made the most of the cleaner course to post what would be the 8th fastest time on the second run as he came down into the lead and then held on to it. This was the first time that he had sat in the leaders enclosure on the World Cup and her certainly enjoyed there moment - the smile said it all!
At the half way stage on the second run, Raposo still held the lead and it took a great run by Rasmus Windingstad to dislodge the British racer from the lead. Windingstad has been on the podium before in Kranjska Gora in 2019 and likes the hill. With the sixth fastest time, Windingstad had set his stall out for another good performance.
McGrath, Feller and then Braathen all took residence in the race leaders enclosure before Brennsteiner put down a marker from fifth after the first run. The tempo was rising and then atmosphere was rising as well.
When Kristoffersen put down a super impressive second run to grab the lead, this laid down the challenge to Schmid and Odermatt. Kristoffersen is on a roll and was chasing an impressive four wins on the bounce having won both races in Garmisch and also the first race in Kranjska Gora. Kristoffersen loves a challenge.
Kristoffersen had put everything into his second run and was rewarded with the fastest second run time.
Schmid would drop to sixth and Odermatt just failed to match his season long excellence with the 11th fastest time to drop down to third. The fact he has been on the podium in all seven races in the regular season races was not lost on him, a super impressive stat for the young racer from Switzerland.
With the Giant Slalom Globe having already been decided the day before, this was just pure racing for all the racers. Places to qualify at the World Cup Finals were at stake but no one from outside the twenty five forced their way in, much to the relief of Raphael Haaser who started the day in 25th but skied out of the first run.
So Kristoffersen takes his fourth win on the bounce, some of the smaller nations also created headlines: Lithuania;s Drukaroc scored his countries first Giant Slalom World Cup points and Britain's Charlie Raposo joined the party with Billy Major and Laurie Taylor in scoring top twenty results on the World Cup.
The 2021-2022 World Cup regular race season drew to a close and with many heading to Andorra for the Europa Cup Tour finals or the lucky ones to have made it into the top 25 to Meribel for the World Cup Finals, long journey's lay ahead.
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