{"id":802088,"date":"2019-12-06T16:40:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T23:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/switzerlands-marco-odermatt-claims-first-world-cup-win-at-birds-of-prey-super-g\/"},"modified":"2019-12-06T16:40:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T23:40:00","slug":"switzerlands-marco-odermatt-claims-first-world-cup-win-at-birds-of-prey-super-g","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/switzerlands-marco-odermatt-claims-first-world-cup-win-at-birds-of-prey-super-g\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland\u2019s Marco Odermatt claims first World Cup win at Birds of Prey super-G"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

BEAVER CREEK \u2014 There Marco Odermatt was, in the Birds of Prey finish corral following his gutsy super-G run, wondering just how fast he was.<\/p>\n

As the second skier on course, and the first to finish, the confusion was understandable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just enjoyed the moment in the leader box and waited,\u201d Odermatt said.<\/p>\n

And waited. And waited. And waited.<\/p>\n

Sixty-eight skiers later, Odermatt, 22, of Switzerland had his first World Cup win \u2014 and newfound celebrity. His winning time of 1 minute, 10.90 seconds was good enough to hold off Norway\u2019s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, just 0.10 seconds behind, and third-place finisher Matthias Mayer of Austria.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith bib No. 2, you don\u2019t have any chances to see other guys how they race, how they took the line,\u201d he said. \u201cI just did a really good inspection, had the line into my head, and went for it full speed and it was really tight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Risky business<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an understatement. Odermatt nearly straddled a gate up top on the technical course set, then made another mistake on the bottom half of the course where he nearly crossed his skis but managed to hold it all together.<\/p>\n

It was the perfect super-G run, in the end, despite the mistakes \u2014 a high-risk gamble that paid off big.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost lost everything but that\u2019s part of the game in ski racing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s lucky to make it down,\u201d said Steven Nyman, the U.S. Ski Team veteran who, at 37, made his 23rd start on the Birds of Prey Course Friday, finishing 24th. Nyman\u2019s first World Cup race at Beaver Creek was in 2005, when Odermatt was 8.<\/p>\n

Nyman said he sees big things for the young Swiss skier whose previous best finishes came last season in giant slalom \u2014 a second at the World Cup finals in Soldeu, Andorra, and a third in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the second split, he lost some time,\u201d said Nyman, who has two podium finishes of his own in Beaver Creek. \u201cSo he can have a lot more speed than he even showed today. It\u2019s impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Travis Ganong, the top American finisher, in sixth, called Odermatt\u2019s triumph a \u201cone out of 100 run.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s whoever is willing to take the most risk and then pull it off,\u201d said Ganong, who was the day\u2019s clear winner for the best cheering section. \u201cOdermatt, he took way too much risk and somehow it worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the win, Odermatt became the seventh first-time winner in the Birds of Prey super-G, joining a list that includes Bjarne Solbakken (2003), Stephan Goergl (2004), Hannes Reichelt (2005), Sandro Viletta (2011), Matteo Marsaglia (2012), and Vincent Kriechmayr (2017).<\/p>\n

Three of those seven are Austrians, and Reichelt and Kriechmayr used their first wins at Beaver Creek as a launch pad to big careers, particularly Reichelt, who was the oldest racer in Friday\u2019s field at 39.<\/p>\n

Odermatt\u2019s win also represented a changing of the guard in a race that had been won by Austrians the previous four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made a mistake, especially in the flat area, and I was not sure if he can be one of the fastest today,\u201d said Mayer, the top Austrian on Friday. \u201cBut he risked a lot and he did it very well. Congratulations to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kilde, born five years later than Odermatt and a three-time World Cup winner, also looked on like a proud older brother when talking about the run that won it all on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s for sure the guy for the future,\u201d Kilde said, smiling. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be the guy for Beaver Creek for the next 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story is from VailDaily.com Vail Daily Sports Editor Chris Freud contributed reporting<\/p>\n

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

BEAVER CREEK \u2014 There Marco Odermatt was, in the Birds of Prey finish corral following his gutsy super-G run, wondering just how fast he was. As the second skier on course, and the first to finish, the confusion was understandable. \u201cI just enjoyed the moment in the leader box and waited,\u201d Odermatt said. And waited. […]<\/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-802088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 06:26:25","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\/802088","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=802088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}