Luca De Aliprandini, no medal in giant slalom
Gigant, results
The giant slalom of the World Championships in Saalbach give the first seasonal success to Austria and the protagonist of the red and white fairy tale è a Raphael Haaser who after the silver medal in super G conquers the rainbow title between the wide gates climbing up four positions in the ranking in the second run; reverse path for Luca De Aliprandini who slips back and finishes ninth.
Haaser has not yet been able to win in the World Cup, where he counts four podiums, all in super G: in Saalbach he found just the right conditions and inspiration to climb to the top of the standings and seize success in 2’39″71. A triumph built with an’excellent first run that led him to fifth place with bib number 26 and concretized with an excellent second run that allows him to precede the Swiss trio composed of Thomas Tumler (+0″23), Loic Meillard (+0″51) and Marco Odermatt (+0″58) who thus remains at the foot of the podium. Fifth place for Marco Schwarz, who returns to altitude after last year’s injury, while Norwegian Timon Haugan, leading halfway through the race, è soon stumbled into a mistake in the opening of the second that forced him to settle for seventh place one second behind Haaser.
Delay of 1″03 instead for De Aliprandini, excellent sixth after the first run arm in arm with Tumler and ninth at the finish line of the second one: the 34-year-old from Trentino, already silver in Cortina d’Ampezzo 2021, tried to give a new paw towards the podium but compared to the morning run è lacked perhaps a little’ of gradualnessà in the’incision of edge.
“I have no regrets, I go home happy even though I did not get the medal. As I went down in the second run I felt that something was missing: today it did not want to turn the right way but I am still in the 10 and è a good placing that gives constancy to this season. Now I think about the next races, where I have chances to do well”.
Twentieth place then for Giovanni Franzoni who first managed to find room with bib number 44 and then moved up four more places to finish 2″02 from Haaser followed by Alex Vinatzer, 21st at 2″08 with Filippo Della Vite 24th at 3″10.
