OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Manuel Feller of Austria overcame a first-run deficit to win a World Cup slalom on Sunday, his fourth victory of the season.
Trailing by nearly a half-second entering the final run, Feller smoothly navigated the tricky course. He finished in a combined time of 1 minute, 42.08 seconds to edge Clement Noel of France by a margin of 0.28 seconds. First-run leader Linus Strasser of Germany made a small mistake that cost him time and wound up third.
With the win, Feller extended his lead over Strasser to 204 points in the race for the season-long slalom crown. Feller has been consistent all year, finishing in the top five in all eight World Cup slalom races.
“The second run was so tricky,” Feller explained on the broadcast after the finish. “You couldn’t ski every turn on the limit but you always were thinking you need to push a little bit more.”
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The 31-year-old Feller became the first man to capture four World Cup slalom wins in one season since fellow countryman Marcel Hirscher earned five in 2018-19.
Jett Seymour was the only American to qualify for a second run. He finished 15th, 1.53 seconds behind Feller’s time. Seymour won a slalom national title while competing for the University of Denver in 2019.
The difficult course design for run No. 2 led to five racers not finishing and five more winding up at least 2 seconds behind Feller.
Norway’s Alexander Steen Olsen, the defending slalom champion at Palisades Tahoe, made a mistake in his first run and didn’t finish in the top 30 to qualify for a second run.
On Saturday, Swiss standout Marco Odermatt sealed his third straight World Cup overall title by winning a 10th consecutive giant slalom race. Odermatt’s win at the Palisades Tahoe resort gave him 1,702 points, with not enough races left in the season for anyone to catch him. Feller is second in the overall standings with 801 points.
Odermatt didn’t compete in the slalom Sunday.
The men’s World Cup circuit moves to Aspen, Colorado, next weekend for a pair of giant slalom competitions along with a slalom.
AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
