Kristoffersen returns to winning ways in Val d’Isere slalom

By Published On: December 11th, 2016Comments Off on Kristoffersen returns to winning ways in Val d’Isere slalom

Despite sitting out the opening World Cup slalom in Levi, Finland, Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen didn’t miss a beat in his return to the discipline in Val, d’Isere, France, on Sunday as he took the decisive win with a total time of 1:44.54 seconds. Kristoffersen bested Austria’s Marcel Hirscher in second by an impressive 0.75 seconds as Russia’s Aleksander Khoroshilov returned to the World Cup podium in third, 1.92 seconds off of the pace.

Perfect weather and rock hard snow were once again on tap as racers took to the Face de Bellevarde for the morning’s run. A fast first run set proved perhaps a little trickier than expected as things were shaken up at the top of the leaderboard as yesterday’s winner, Frenchman Alexis Pinturault, bested the field and sat a comfortable 0.42 seconds ahead of Kristoffersen and 0.74 seconds ahead of Hirscher, respectively.

The second run’s slightly slower set provided for ample opportunity to shake things up as several racers took advantage of the conditions to make big jumps in the standings. Hirscher looked to have laid down a gem of a run as he crossed the line with an impressive 1.60 second advantage and waited for the remaining three racers to challenge him.

Kristoffersen was next on course and bested his Austrian rival every step of the way, making quick work of things and building his advantage to 0.75 seconds as he crossed the line chest pumping with excitement. Khoroshilov skied solidly, but could not quite match the pace, sliding into third, and Pinturault, with the possibility of back-to-back wins on home snow lingering in the air, made an early exit high up on the course, giving Kristoffersen his 10th career World Cup slalom win.

“It’s a really good feeling,” Kristoffersen said after the race. “With all that’s happened in the last month and a half, too, this is really good. I hope you can expect me to ski good. As long as I can do that, I’m happy.”

Kristoffersen has been embroiled in a legal battle with the Norwegian federation for the past month over a personal sponsorship and missed the opening Levi slalom as a result. Needless to say, he was happy to make a successful return to competition this weekend.

“I’m a little bit relieved,” he added. “It’s nice to slap some plastic again.”

Although Hirscher walks away from Val d’Isere with two more runner-up finishes, he admits he still has work to do if he wants to contend for wins week in and week out given the current form of his rivals in GS and slalom.

“You never can expect anything in alpine ski racing, especially not in the technical events, it is nearly impossible,” Hirscher explained. “From parts, it was an amazing weekend, from the positions, it was brilliant, but from the feelings I had during skiing, it was not the best weekend I’ve had so far in my career. Now Henrik is back and he is showing us who is the real big king in slalom skiing. I thought I have done a pretty good job during the summer, but right now I am searching for some slalom tricks to come closer to Henrik.”

Khoroshilov sat in second place after the first run and admitted that his second run just was not up to par compared to the skiing of Kristoffersen and Hirscher.

“First run was really great,” he said. “The second run, it was just surviving for me and maybe I think it’s not only for me, but I’m really happy I’m on the podium again. I had a really good feeling and in the second run it was just a little more bumpy so I was a little more stiff. Really, I was just braking and surviving.”

Khoroshilov’s comments were a common theme from racers over the weekend as extremely icy conditions combined with one of the most technically demanding slopes on the men’s tour made for a humbling two days of racing for many in the field.

It was a disappointing day for the American contingent as none of the five starters for the United States made it to the second run either by failing to finish the first run or not qualifying for the second. Head men’s coach Sasha Rearick was understandably disappointed with the performance, but was quick to see the upside to the team’s current situation.

“To me, it comes down to a confidence thing,” Rearick said. “This group, besides Chodounsky, is a young group. Not a lot of World Cup experience and a sense of these kinds of conditions and this kind of hill and they’ve got to step their game up. They’re doing well in training; I was pleased to see how balanced they were in training and at least they’ve got that platform right now to build on and the key in the next weeks here is to bring that balanced position into confidently skiing the ski clean and in the fall-line.”

The men’s tour now heads to Val Gardena, Italy, for downhill and super-G races Dec. 14-17.

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Top 10

  1. Henrik Kristoffersen (NOR) – Rossignol/Rossignol/Look
  2. Marcel Hirscher (AUT) – Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
  3. Alexander Khoroshilov (RUS) – Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
  4. Marc Digruber (AUT) – Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
  5. Stefano Gross (ITA) – Voelkl/Tecnica/Marker
  6. Michael Matt (AUT) – Rossignol/Rossignol/Look
  7. Manfred Moelgg (ITA) – Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
  8. Andre Myhrer (SWE) – Head/Head/Head
  9. Mattias Hargin (SWE) – Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
  10. Naoki Yuasa (JPN) – Hart/Nordica/Marker

Official Results

Rank Bib FIS Code Name Year Nation Run 1 Run 2 Total Time Diff. FIS Points
 1  2  422304 KRISTOFFERSEN Henrik 1994 NOR  51.67  52.87  1:44.54  0.00
 2  6  53831 HIRSCHER Marcel 1989 AUT  51.99  53.30  1:45.29  +0.75  5.17
 3  5  480736 KHOROSHILOV Alexander 1984 RUS  51.49  54.97  1:46.46  +1.92  13.22
 4  8  51395 DIGRUBER Marc 1988 AUT  53.12  53.77  1:46.89  +2.35  16.19
 5  1  293797 GROSS Stefano 1986 ITA  52.15  54.86  1:47.01  +2.47  17.01
 6  20  54170 MATT Michael 1993 AUT  53.62  53.50  1:47.12  +2.58  17.77
 7  14  292491 MOELGG Manfred 1982 ITA  52.91  54.30  1:47.21  +2.67  18.39
 8  7  501017 MYHRER Andre 1983 SWE  52.86  54.39  1:47.25  +2.71  18.66
 9  13  501111 HARGIN Mattias 1985 SWE  52.22  55.32  1:47.54  +3.00  20.66
 10  36  301709 YUASA Naoki 1983 JPN  52.99  54.58  1:47.57  +3.03  20.87
 11  12  511996 YULE Daniel 1993 SUI  52.44  55.32  1:47.76  +3.22  22.18
 12  26  511983 AERNI Luca 1993 SUI  53.14  54.63  1:47.77  +3.23  22.25
 13  43  6291574 SALA Tommaso 1995 ITA  53.37  54.46  1:47.83  +3.29  22.66
 14  11  290732 THALER Patrick 1978 ITA  53.60  54.33  1:47.93  +3.39  23.35
 15  19  192665 GRANGE Jean-Baptiste 1984 FRA  53.00  55.02  1:48.02  +3.48  23.97
 16  44  202451 STRASSER Linus 1992 GER  52.98  55.06  1:48.04  +3.50  24.11
 17  21  220689 RYDING Dave 1986 GBR  53.54  54.79  1:48.33  +3.79  26.10
 18  65  60253 MARCHANT Armand 1997 BEL  53.44  54.99  1:48.43  +3.89  26.79
 19  22  293098 RAZZOLI Giuliano 1984 ITA  53.68  54.95  1:48.63  +4.09  28.17
 20  15  191459 LIZEROUX Julien 1979 FRA  53.77  54.95  1:48.72  +4.18  28.79
 21  27  501116 LAHDENPERAE Anton 1985 SWE  53.57  55.94  1:49.51  +4.97  34.23
 22  32  700830 ZAMPA Adam 1990 SVK  53.78  55.77  1:49.55  +5.01  34.51
 23  4  54320 SCHWARZ Marco 1995 AUT  52.68  57.47  1:50.15  +5.61  38.64
 24  28  511902 ZENHAEUSERN Ramon 1992 SUI  53.11  57.42  1:50.53  +5.99  41.26
 25  23  421860 NORDBOTTEN Jonathan 1989 NOR  53.61  58.58  1:52.19  +7.65  52.69
 26  16  193967 MUFFAT-JEANDET Victor 1989 FRA  53.37  1:00.60  1:53.97  +9.43  64.95
Disqualified 1st run
 39  291318 TONETTI Riccardo 1989 ITA
Did not qualify for 2nd run
 68  561244 KRANJEC Zan 1992 SLO
 64  512063 BONVIN Anthony 1994 SUI
 60  194207 THEOLIER Steven 1990 NED
 59  6531063 GINNIS AJ 1994 USA
 57  54252 RASCHNER Dominik 1994 AUT
 56  550054 ZVEJNIEKS Kristaps 1992 LAT
 51  561322 HADALIN Stefan 1995 SLO
 48  192506 MISSILLIER Steve 1984 FRA
 47  481327 TRIKHICHEV Pavel 1992 RUS
 42  380334 VIDOVIC Matej 1993 CRO
 41  511908 SCHMIDIGER Reto 1992 SUI
 38  103865 PHILP Trevor 1992 CAN
 37  320266 JUNG Dong-hyun 1988 KOR
 34  150644 KRYZL Krystof 1986 CZE
 33  103729 READ Erik 1991 CAN
 31  511127 GINI Marc 1984 SUI
 30  194262 BUFFET Robin 1991 FRA
 25  201896 STEHLE Dominik 1986 GER
Did not finish 2nd run
 29  421669 HAUGEN Leif Kristian 1987 NOR
 18  54063 FELLER Manuel 1992 AUT
 9  194364 PINTURAULT Alexis 1991 FRA
 3  201702 NEUREUTHER Felix 1984 GER
Did not finish 1st run
 70  54106 BREITFUSS KAMMERLANDER Simon 1992 BOL
 69  30388 BIRKNER DE MIGUEL Tomas 1997 ARG
 67  700879 ZAMPA Andreas 1993 SVK
 66  30266 GASTALDI Sebastiano 1991 ARG
 63  6190403 NOEL Clement 1997 FRA
 62  202437 LUITZ Stefan 1992 GER
 61  512182 MEILLARD Loic 1996 SUI
 58  194664 RIZZO Maxime 1993 FRA
 55  502015 JAKOBSEN Kristoffer 1994 SWE
 54  54233 LEITGEB Richard 1994 AUT
 53  934502 ANKENY Michael 1991 USA
 52  103676 BROWN Phil 1991 CAN
 50  512138 SIMONET Sandro 1995 SUI
 49  511899 ROCHAT Marc 1992 SUI
 46  53889 HIRSCHBUEHL Christian 1990 AUT
 45  934523 ENGEL Mark 1991 USA
 40  290095 BALLERIN Andrea 1989 ITA
 35  930160 KELLEY Robby 1990 USA
 24  501101 BYGGMARK Jens 1985 SWE
 17  534508 CHODOUNSKY David 1984 USA
 10  422082 FOSS-SOLEVAAG Sebastian 1991 NOR

 

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About the Author: Sean Higgins

A Lake Tahoe native and University of Vermont graduate, Higgins was a member of the Catamounts' 2012 NCAA title winning squad and earned first team All-American honors in 2013. Prior to coming to Ski Racing Media, he coached U14s for the Squaw Valley Ski Team.