ALPINE SKIING: Home crowd happy with Hirscher’s 10th win of the season in Schladming

Austria's Marcel Hirscher (Photo: Jonas Ericcsoon via Wikipedia)

It’s only been 16 days since Austria’s Marcel Hirscher won a FIS Alpine World Cup race, but it seemed like so much longer after losing twice to France’s new star, Clement Noel. So Tuesday’s Slalom win in Schladming (AUT) was welcomed by a happy Austrian crowd and Hirscher himself.

FIS reported some 45,000 fans in attendance for the night racing, with Hirscher the star from the beginning. He tore down the mountain for a 52.28 first-run time that no one could approach and he entered the second run 0.99 seconds ahead of Swiss Daniel Yule.

In the meantime, his rival from the past two races – Noel – skied off the course during the first run and did not advance.

“The last few days were not the easiest ones because of the first runs and everybody is talking about the first runs, so I thought to myself ‘Okay let’s show a first run that everyone will want to see’ and I’m happy it was possible.” Hirscher said afterwards.

Even with Noel out, Hirscher hardly let up and again had the fastest time on the course – 52.52 – to win in 1:44.81, a massive 1.21-second victory over France’s Alexis Pinturault (1:46.02) and 1.60 over Yule (1:46.41).

Said Hirscher, “It was a perfect run [the second] and it was so crazy to ski and the crowd were amazing.”

It was his third career win in Schladming and his 10th of the season. He won 13 last season and still has three Giant Slaloms and three Slaloms (including a City Event) remaining on the schedule. Both he and Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) are chasing the all-time single-season record of 14 wins by Vreni Schneider (SUI) in 1989. Shiffrin has 11 wins so far; Hirscher’s 13 wins last season is tied with Ingemar Stenmark (SWE: 1978-79) and Hermann Maier (AUT: 2000-01).

FIS Alpine World Cup
Schladming (AUT) ~ 29 January 2019
(Full results here)

Men’s Slalom: 1. Marcel Hirscher (AUT), 1:44.81; 2. Alexis Pinturault (FRA), 1:46.02; 3. Daniel Yule (SUI), 1:46.41; 4. Ramon Zenhaeusern (SUI), 1:47.06; 5. Marco Schwarz (AUT), 1:47.40.