Hinterstoder (Austria) (AFP)
A master stroke: in three races on his favorite track at Hinterstoder (Austria), Alexis Pinturault won twice, winning the giant slalom Monday the day after the combined, and regained the lead in the Ski World Cup alpine, at the start of the final sprint.
After the passage of snow in the middle of last week which has whitened the surroundings, the Stodertal, host region of the great white circus since Friday, gradually found its slightly green landscapes on Monday, rocked by the spring temperatures back in Upper Austria .
On the other hand, after the passage of Alexis Pinturault on the Hannes-Trinkl track that he loves so much, the landscape of the Men's Alpine Skiing World Cup is completely upset, after 250 points scored out of 300 possible.
At eight races from the end of the season, it is now Alexis Pinturault who sits at the very top of the general classification, as he approached this primordial stage in his winter with pressure, behind by 124 points over the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde after a giant slalom in Naeba (Japan) missed ten days ago.
While it is necessary to go back to 1997 to find traces of the last Frenchman (Luc Alphand) to have won the big crystal globe, Pinturault now has a 26 point lead over Kilde, once again amazing on giant Monday, sixth in a discipline let him ski better and better.
The Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen, third man in this fight to succeed Marcel Hirscher, eightfold holder of the world N.1 globe but retired from the tracks since September 2019, could only make third of the giant, handicapped by a first run totally missed .
In general, it marks the coup with 107 points behind Pinturault, while there are an identical number of races to be played by the two skiers by the end of the season.
- Love rating in Austria -
Monday, the Courchevel skier was able to check his love rating with an Austrian public who began to appreciate it in recent seasons, especially when he began to speak German, acclaimed when crossing the line of arrival as much as during his few words to the public who came to attend the race.
However, the weather conditions were not favorable, with a noticeable warmth and a little less compact snow for the second run of the giant slalom.
But "Pintu" had done its share of the work and the difference by "cutting" the first run in the morning. Leaving with the number 3 bib, he relegated Kristoffersen to almost a second and a half, a large mattress reduced only by half by the Norwegian.
With his 29th World Cup victory, Pinturault is also relaunching to end the season at the top of the giant slalom ranking, coming back six points behind Kristoffersen, a little globe trusted by the two absolute references of the discipline since 2009: Hirscher and the American Ted Ligety.
Eight races remain on the World Cup schedule: two downhill races that only Kilde will compete in, two slaloms only run by Pinturault and Kristoffersen, as well as two super-Gs and two giants that will make the difference in the allocation of the big globe.
Unless the coronavirus disrupts everything: the International Ski Federation (FIS) holds a council via teleconference in the middle of the afternoon Monday, while the finals, with four races on the program, are scheduled for Cortina d'Ampezzo , in Veneto, the third Italian region most affected by the epidemic.
© 2020 AFP