KVITFJELL: Swiss skier Lara Gut-Behrami on Saturday won the first of two women’s super-G races of the weekend in Kvitfjell to extend her lead in the overall World Cup standings on injured US star Mikaela Shiffrin. The Olympic super-G champion’s risk-taking in foggy conditions paid off as she finished ahead of two Austrians with Cornelia Huetter at 0.12sec and Mirjam Puchner 0.13 off the pace. With Shiffrin still recovering from a knee injury, Gut-Behrami now leads her rival by 305 points in the overall standings to close in on the World Cup title she previously won in 2016.

“I never expected to be still racing at 32 and to be so consistent,” said Gut-Behrami, who picked up speed on the lower half of the Olympiabakken to finish in a time of one minute 33.52 seconds. “There’s no strategy, it’s just I am trying to enjoy more what I am doing,” said Gut-Behrami after her 45th career World Cup win.

“I know I am not going to race another 1000 races more. So, I am trying to enjoy the way I am skiing, the good feeling I have and to have fun while I am skiing. “I’m looking forward to the next races and keep on skiing well.” Shiffrin should return to competition next weekend in the Swedish resort of Are, where a giant and a slalom are planned, before the finals in Saalbach, Austria, from March 16 to 23. Gut-Behrami will not take part in the slaloms, which leaves hope for Shiffrin, who has the opportunity to take 200 points from her in this event before the end of the season. Gut-Behrami claimed her eighth success this season, the best record of her career, and a 45th victory in the World Cup.

She has the second-best record of active skiers behind record 95-winner Shiffrin, men and women combined. “I’m trying to enjoy the good feeling I have,” said the Swiss skier. “I know I don’t have many years left on the circuit.” On Saturday, a downhill race had initially been scheduled but due to adverse weather conditions, training sessions planned for Thursday and Friday could not take place and the event was transformed into a super-G. A second super-G is scheduled for Sunday in the Norwegian resort.

To conquer a fifth small globe in the super-G with two races left, Gut-Behrami is still battling with Huetter and Italian Federica Brignone, who was sixth on Saturday. “With Lara at the moment, second is good,” said Huetter, whose own strong performance keeps her just 25 points behind Gut-Behrami in the race to top the season-long super-G standings. “We have a tough fight. Not only for us but also for everyone watching it’s really nice to see,” Huetter said. “And we will have a nice showdown in Saalbach, at home.”

Meanwhile, newly crowned Alpine Skiing World Cup overall champion Marco Odermatt won his 11th straight giant slalom race on Friday to clinch this season’s discipline title. The 26-year-old Swiss ace took the giant slalom crown after clocking a combined time of 2min 7.87sec to pip compatriot Loic Meillard by 0.14sec in Aspen, Colorado.

Norway’s Atle Lie McGrath finished third, 0.81 behind Odermatt, who clinched his third overall crown last weekend with victory in the giant slalom at Palisades Tahoe in California. Odermatt, who won the last three giant slaloms of the 2022-2023 season, is a perfect 8-0 in the event this year. Friday’s win left him with 800 points, an unassailable 470 points clear of Croatia’s Filip Zubcic.

“I think it was the most difficult victory of the season,” the Swiss world number one said after Friday’s win, revealing that he “didn’t feel very good” at the start of the race. With the overall and giant slalom crowns now secured, Odermatt remains on course to win two more titles.

The Swiss leads the standings in the downhill and super G categories. He is also on track to complete a clean sweep in the giant slalom if he wins the three remaining giant slaloms left on the calendar — a feat not achieved since Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark in the 1978-1979 season.

“Of course I’m thinking about it, it would be great,” Odermatt admitted on Friday before cautioning: “But even for tomorrow, I don’t know what the level of my batteries will be. It takes so much energy for me to be focused every race.” With 12 wins in all disciplines this season, Odermatt could also eclipse his record-equalling tally of 13 set last year which he shares with Stenmark (1979) and Austrian duo Hermann Maier (2001) and Marcel Hirscher (2018). – AFP