{"id":793112,"date":"2019-02-15T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/norways-kristoffersen-topples-a-sick-hirscher-to-win-gs-at-worlds\/"},"modified":"2019-02-15T16:32:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T23:32:00","slug":"norways-kristoffersen-topples-a-sick-hirscher-to-win-gs-at-worlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/norways-kristoffersen-topples-a-sick-hirscher-to-win-gs-at-worlds\/","title":{"rendered":"Norway\u2019s Kristoffersen topples a sick Hirscher to win GS at Worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen celebrates after winning the men’s giant slalom at the alpine ski World Championships in Are, Sweden on Friday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ARE, Sweden \u2014 Norwegian skiing is in safe hands, even with its beloved king now in retirement.<\/p>\n

Henrik Kristoffersen gave Norway its second individual gold medal of the world championships by toppling an under-the-weather Marcel Hirscher to win the giant slalom on Friday.<\/p>\n

With Kjetil Jansrud also victorious in the downhill last week, Norway appears in great shape heading into the post-Aksel Lund Svindal era.<\/p>\n

Svindal signed off his illustrious career last weekend with a silver medal behind Jansrud in the downhill, and said he was leaving behind a strong generation of Norwegian skiing talent.<\/p>\n

Kristoffersen is at the forefront of that \u2014 especially now that he has ended his long wait for a medal at a world championship.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old Kristoffersen had finished fourth in his last three races at the worlds \u2014 the giant slalom and slalom in 2017 and the slalom in 2015 \u2014 and headed into his second run of the giant slalom in third place behind leader Alexis Pinturault and Hirscher, the favorite and one of skiing\u2019s all-time greats.<\/p>\n

However, Kristoffersen produced an aggressive run under the lights, his speed and flow particularly apparent in the bottom section, to win by 0.20 seconds over Hirscher. Pinturault won the bronze medal, 0.42 seconds back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was about time to get a medal,\u201d said Kristoffersen, who wasn\u2019t necessarily expecting it to come in the giant slalom.<\/p>\n

Kristoffersen\u2019s last win in the discipline came at Meribel in 2015 and he has been consistently behind Hirscher, the seven-time overall World Cup winner and defending Olympic and world giant slalom champion. He finished second to Hirscher at last year\u2019s Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.<\/p>\n

Kristoffersen was without a win in any discipline for a year but said he gained confidence from the course being doused with salt to maintain the snow surface amid unseasonably warm weather. The temperature in Are for the first leg was 46 F.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no one that skis on salt as much as Norwegians do,\u201d he said. \u201cEven though I haven\u2019t trained on salt in giant slalom in a long, long time, I have it from childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hirscher\u2019s preparations for the race were affected by a bout of flu that kept him in bed for much of the past two days. He acknowledged after the race that the likelihood of him lining up on the starting gate wasn\u2019t high on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally,\u201d Hirscher said, \u201cif you have regular work on those days, you normally tell your boss I\u2019m done for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet he managed to be only 0.10 seconds behind Pinturault after an error-free first run, keeping Hirscher on course for a record-tying seventh gold medal at the worlds. But he went wide at two gates in the top section of his second run, causing him to lose 0.41 seconds on Kristoffersen in the middle section.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond place is the first loser but Henrik had an amazing day with two great runs,\u201d Hirscher said. \u201cHenrik is at the top for such a long time. He was more than ready for a world title.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hirscher, who was noticeably sniffing after the race, added that he was \u201clooking forward to getting back to bed again\u201d to rest up ahead of Sunday\u2019s slalom.<\/p>\n

When Pinturault crossed the finish line in third place, Kristoffersen clenched his fists before walking into the finish area, crouching on one knee and acknowledging the jubilant Norwegian fans in the grandstand.<\/p>\n

For Pinturault, it was his second medal of the championships after winning the Alpine combined on Monday.<\/p>\n

AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf contributed.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen celebrates after winning the men’s giant slalom at the alpine ski World Championships in Are, Sweden on Friday. ARE, Sweden \u2014 Norwegian skiing is in safe hands, even with its beloved king now in retirement. Henrik Kristoffersen gave Norway its second individual gold medal of the world championships by toppling an under-the-weather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 16:50:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}