OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. (AP) – Austria's Manuel Ferrer overcame a first-run deficit in the World Cup slalom competition Sunday to claim his fourth win of the season.
We entered the final run with a difference of nearly 0.5 seconds, Ferrer navigated smoothly Tricky course. He finished in a total time of 1 minute 42.08 seconds, beating France's Clement Noel by 0.28 seconds. Linus Strasser (Germany), the leader in the first run, lost time due to a small mistake and ended up in 3rd place.
With the win, Ferrer extended his lead over Strasser to 204 points in the race for the season's slalom title. Ferrer has been consistent throughout the year, finishing in the top five in all eight World Cup slalom races.
“The second one was very tricky,” Ferrer explained in the post-goal broadcast. “You can’t skate every turn to the limit, but I always thought I needed to push a little more.”
Ferrer, 31, became the first athlete to win four World Cup slalom events in a single season since compatriot Marcel Hirscher won five in 2018-19.
Jett Seymour was the only American to qualify for a second time. He finished 15th, 1.53 seconds behind Ferrer's time. Seymour attended the University of Denver in 2019 and won the national title in slalom.
The second run had a difficult course design, with five riders unable to finish, and a further five finishing at least two seconds behind Ferrer.
Defending slalom champion Alexander Steen Olsen of Norway at Palisades Tahoe made a mistake on his first run and was unable to finish within the top 30 to qualify for the second run.
Swiss players to watch on Saturday Marco Odermatt sealed his things World Cup overall for 3 consecutive years Won the title by winning 10 consecutive giant slalom races. Odermatt earned 1,702 points with his win at Palisades Tahoe Resort, but there aren't enough races left in the season to catch him. Ferrer is second in the overall standings with 801 points.
Odermatt did not compete in Sunday's slalom.
The men's World Cup circuit moves to Aspen, Colorado next weekend, where the slalom and giant slalom pairs events will take place.
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AP ski: https://apnews.com/hub/Alpine Skiing