Alexander Schmid achieved a novelty in the Alpine Ski World Cup on Sunday.

In Wengen, the 27-year-old from Oberstdorf managed to qualify for the second run in the slalom with the very last start number.

With number 67 in 28th place, just 1.99 seconds behind the best-runner Henrik Kristoffersen.

Nobody had managed that before.

"It was amazing," said Schmid himself.

Achim Dreis

sports editor.

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And yet it was only an intermediate station in the result tableau, because the giant slalom specialist also showed in the final round that he feels quite comfortable in the narrow radii between the slalom poles. Now Schmid took advantage of the good start number, he was allowed to start the race in third place and moved up another 14 places with the sixth best time. 14th for a man who had never finished in a World Cup slalom before. "I didn't think so," he said. He even reduced the gap to the day's winner to 1.44 seconds.

This day's winner was of course the even greater sensation. Because Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, Norwegian skier with a Brazilian mother, was even placed behind Schmid after the first round and then drove with a great performance from rank 29 to first place. That too had never happened before in a World Cup slalom. "Of course I didn't expect that," said the visibly shocked Braathen in the winner's interview: "I'm grateful and happy."

The young man had never finished fourth in slalom before.

"My goal was just to become technically more stable," explained the 21-year-old modestly.

In his home country, the young man with the South American genes, which are exotic for skiing, has been treated as the next big promise since his World Cup debut a good three years ago.

Ironically, the fact that he was now knighted was also due to another Norwegian who was quite used to winning.

Kristoffersen seemed to be striving for an unchallenged success in the second round, even on a declining slope, before feeling sure of victory he slipped a few meters in front of the goal and he threw away the tangible anniversary victory, it would have been his 25th in the World Cup.

Three unexpected people on the podium

This resulted in an outsider podium, which would certainly have been high odds on the betting exchange. Braathen won by 0.22 seconds ahead of Switzerland's Daniel Yule, who moved up from eighth to second. And the third in the cheering trio, the Italian Giuliano Razzioli (+0.29), Olympic champion from 2010, but then slipped into the category "under also running", would certainly not have expected such a success as ninth after the first run .

Linus Straßer from Munich is someone who you can always trust to shoot forward with a tour de force after a slow first run.

After 15th place at half-time, he was quickly on the way with an interim best time, but then made a mistake and dropped out.

This left the German head coach Christian Schwaiger with a result of “mixed feelings”, while his best man this time said: “I was lucky.” But everyone is proverbially responsible for their own fortune.

Like Smith.