Raphael Haaser, the 27-year-old Austrian, is now the new world champion of giant slalom, after taking the top spot in the discipline’s world championship in Saalbach, Austria. So, what happened to the current title holder, Marco Odermatt? Well, the Swiss skier couldn’t defend his title and ended up in fourth place.
Giant Slalom Championship Details
Haaser, who had a pretty impressive win in the Supergigent last week, managed to advance four positions between runs and avoided a second Helvetic Triple in these championships. He completed the two descents on the Schneekristall course at the Salzburg station, which starts at 1,511 meters of altitude and has a 450-meter slope, in a winning time of 2 minutes, 39 seconds, and 71 hundredths. That’s 23 hundredths less than Thomas Tumler, and he had a 51-hundredth advantage over another Swiss skier, Loic Meillard, who took bronze.
Now, let’s talk about the rest of the competition – like Timon Haugan, the Norwegian who led the test after the first run but ended up in seventh place. As for the Spanish participation, Aleix Aubert became the youngest Spanish athlete to make it into a second run in a World Cup, and he finished in 23rd place.