Authors of the 3e and 5e time of the first heat dominated by the Swiss Marco Odermatt, Mathieu Faivre and Thibaut Favrot can dream of a podium. It will be more complicated for Alexis Pinturault.
In Yanqing, site of these Olympic Games for alpine skiing, you should know that it snows very infrequently. But obviously, when the snowflakes have decided to come out, they come together and en masse. Indeed, this Sunday morning, the first round of the giant took place in extremely difficult conditions, with a curtain of snow falling on the track and extremely limited visibility. Thus, skiers, one after the other, expressed their frustration in the finish area, like the Italian Luca De Aliprandini releasing a “ Oh Madonna!“before shouting his dismay:”We see nothing !But as Mathieu Faivre rightly pointed out,the conditions are the same for everyone and the coating is very good, so there was still a way to ski. Even if I recognize that it is very special and that I have rarely taken the start of a race with so little visibility.»
In any case, the reigning French world champion perfectly knew how to avoid the pitfalls of complicated weather and a route with very winding parts to set the 3rd best time of the morning. Only eight hundredths behind the leader, Marco Odermatt. The king of the giants with his four victories and his 2nd place in five World Cup races contested this season, however, came very close to drinking the chalice to the dregs in these Games, after disappointing results in speed (7th in the downhill and abandonment in Super G). At the extreme limit of losing his support, the Swiss caught up in extremis at mid-slope and managed, with all his talent, to finish very strong to set the best time in 1’02”93. A mistake that could feed Faivre’s appetite for gold? “I think I’m going to focus on what I have to do first, rather than start looking at what’s ahead. I’m quite satisfied with my first run but it’s only 30% of the work done and the medals are distributed at the end of the second run.»
I had a lot of trouble with the light, I really couldn’t see anything and suddenly I had a hard time taking risks.
Alexis Pinturault
The podium, for the moment, his compatriot Alexis Pinturault is watching him from afar. With 1”06 behind Odermatt, the Frenchman didn’t really know if he should be happy to have arrived at the bottom while limiting the breakage, or despair of seeing his dream of an Olympic title slip away a little more. “For an Olympic giant this is an insufficient run but given the conditions I would say it is ok“, he analyzed at the microphone of France Television. “I had a lot of trouble with the light, I really couldn’t see anything and suddenly I had trouble taking risks, especially with my shoulder (affected during the combination) where I felt a little pain. In the fast parts, I couldn’t let go. But there is a blow to play because we do not know what the conditions will be on the second leg.“A shot to play, another Frenchman, Thibaut Favrot, will have an exceptional one to play after his 5e place at 0”19. Moreover, with five skiers in less than two tenths, the suspense promises to be extraordinary for the second act, scheduled for 6:45 a.m. in France.
