On Saturday, Switzerland's Marco Odermatt was once again crowned the world's best overall alpine skier, while American River Radamas made the breakthrough he had been waiting for for years.
At Palisades Tahoe, Calif., Odermatt won his 10th straight World Cup giant slalom from last season, clinching the season's overall title at a historic early stage with one month left on the schedule.
Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway took second place, with a difference of 12 hundredths of a second based on the combined times of the two runs.
Radamas finished third, 1.37 seconds behind, making him, at 26, the youngest American to finish on the Alpine World Cup podium in nearly a decade.
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“It's been a long time,” Radamas, a Youth Olympic gold medalist and world junior champion who made his World Cup debut in 2017 at age 19, told NBC Sports. “I've wanted to feel what this moment feels like for a long time. I've just kept working. Sometimes I thought it would never come.”
Radamas, who hails from Colorado like Mikaela Shiffrin, earned her first World Cup podium after seven previous individual top-10 finishes.
He becomes the youngest American athlete to finish on the podium at an Alpine World Cup since Travis Gannon in February 2014.
Radamas placed fourth in the GS at the 2022 Olympics and fourth in the combined at the 2023 World Championships, winning gold in the team event.
He won three gold medals at the 2016 Youth Olympics and two gold medals at the 2019 World Junior Championships.
Odermatt, who won four individual gold medals at the 2018 Junior World Championships, is having one of the best seasons in the history of the sport.
The 26-year-old combined his results in all disciplines to win the overall title, ski racing's biggest prize of the year, for the third year in a row.
He took his 11th win of the season on Saturday, mathematically sealing the title with his closest competitor, Austria's Manuel Ferrer, finishing eighth. It was a great end to a great week. First commercial featuring fellow player Roger Federer released.
With 10 races remaining in the 38-race campaign, Odermatt leads the overall standings with 1,001 points. The race winner will be awarded his 100 points in descending order starting with his 1 point for 30th place.
Other historic seasons include Hermann Mayer of Austria in 2000 and 2001, Tina Mays of Slovenia in 2013, Shiffrin in 2019 and 2023, and even Odermatt last year with 10 races remaining. He never won the overall title.
The history of the Alpine World Cup dates back to 1967, and in its first year, Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy won 12 of the 17 men's races.
Odermatt has built a huge lead this year as the world's top-ranked man in downhill, GS and super-G. He does not compete in slalom races.
Injuries have also affected the rankings.
Austrian Marco Schwarz was leading the overall standings with eight points over Odermatt when he suffered a season-ending crash in a downhill race on December 28th.
Norway's Alexander Aamodt Kilde, who had finished second overall behind Odermatt for the past two years, suffered a season-ending crash in a downhill race on January 13th. At the time, Kilde was Odermatt's closest pursuer with a difference of 476 points.
Odermatt becomes the fifth man to win the overall title three years in a row, joining Italy's Gustav Toni, Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark, America's Phil Mahle and Austria's Marcel Hirscher.
He is likely to break the men's overall victory margin record of 743 points, set by Meyer in 2001. It also has an impact on the record for winning margin for men and women, with Mays scoring 1,313 points in 2013.