Marco Schwarz takes first World Cup slalom with win in Adelboden
French first-run leaders toil on second descent as Austrian triumphs ahead of Linus Strasser and Dave Ryding.
Alpine Skiing
Marco Schwarz claimed his first Alpine Ski World Cup slalom victory in a dramatic race in Adelboden on Sunday (10 January).
The 25-year-old Austrian was fourth on the first run, 0.43s behind Clement Noel who looked set to complete a great weekend for France after Alexis Pinturault claimed consecutive giant slaloms on Friday and Saturday at the Swiss resort.
Schwarz produced a solid second run to take the lead from Zagreb winner Linus Strasser with three racers remaining.
Home hope Loic Meillard then struggled badly on the bottom section to end up fifth and PyeongChang 2018 combined bronze medallist Victor Muffat-Jeandet straddled a gate early on.
That left Noel as the only man who could overhaul Schwarz. He started smoothly enough but then toiled on the steep bottom half, almost falling twice before eventually finishing eighth.
Schwarz had previously won an alpine combined city event, but this was his first standard World Cup win with Strasser 0.14s behind second and Dave Ryding one-hundredth further back as the Briton claimed his first podium finish of the season.
Austria's two-time Olympic medallist Michael Matt (+0.17s) was fourth.
The win saw Schwarz overtake his friend and fellow PyeongChang team silver medallist Manuel Feller at the top of the slalom World Cup standings with Feller missing a gate on the first run.
Afterwards, Schwarz told FIS, "The whole team worked a lot and it feels amazing. Manu told me it's OK if I take the red bib today so I'm pretty happy for that."
"This is very special. I was sometimes in the lead and today I made it and it feels amazing to be on the top." - Marco Schwarz