Alex Vinatzer finds his smile again in a giant full of surprises
In the Copper Mountain giant slalom, in which Stefan Brennsteiner seizes his first Alpine Ski World Cup victory at the age of 34 and Marco Odermatt, the Swiss champion, is instead forced to bid farewell to the company after a fall in the first run, Italy also takes satisfaction thanks to Alex Vinatzer’s fine comeback. The Italian athlete, who had not gone beyond 20th position in the first run, instead did more than well in the second run, getting the best partial time that allowed him to climb up to fifth position. “In the first run I was a bit’ asleep” explained the athlete from Selva di Val Gardena.
“Maybe I also wanted to do a little bit’too much on these American snows, where you have to be more fluid instead. Instead, I lost a lot of time on a couple of gates. I did a good analysis before the second run – Vinatzer later revealed -I talked a little bit with Mauro Pini about the best way to approach it, trying to make the skis run better. I didn’t think it was such a favorable run for me, but in the end it went well. I can be happy with my start of the season in the giant slalom.” In a giant slalom full of surprises, then, Vinatzer can still be satisfied despite missing out on the podium, coming just 16 hundredths closer.
The Italian skier placed behind winner Brennsteiner, Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen, Croatia’s Filip Zubcic and Austria’s Marco Schwarz. Further back were the other two Italians able to get back into the thirty participants in the second run: Luca De Aliprandini finished in twenty-sixth, Giovanni Borsotti in twenty-ninth. Three other Italians entered the race: Filippo Della Vite missed qualifying for the second run by seven hundredths, while Tobias Kastlunger finished in forty-second, further from the top thirty. The only retiree was Giovanni Franzoni, who went off the track in the last sector of the opening heat.
