Giant Slalom, Men1

The men’s giant slalom was the fourth Alpine skiing event for men in Beijing. The winner of this event from four years ago, Marcel Hirscher, had retired in 2019. He had also won the Crystal Globe in this event in 2018 and 2019 before stepping back, and on each occasion Henrik Kristoffersen and Alexis Pinturault, Olympic silver and bronze medallists in 2018, were second and third behind Hirscher, respectively. Kristoffersen won the Crystal Globe in 2020 and Pinturault in 2021, with Kristoffersen also becoming world champion in 2019. The reigning world champion from 2021, however, was Mathieu Faivre.

The ongoing World Cup season, with five races already contested, saw Marco Odermatt dominate and he had already finished second in the 2021 giant slalom standings. Odermatt won four races in Sölden, Val-d’Isère, Alta Badia 2, and Adelboden, being beaten only in Alta Badia 1 by Kristoffersen. The current standings showed Odermatt holding a big lead from Manuel Feller, Kristoffersen, and Pinturault.

The race day started with a surprise with a heavy snow fall overnight. As all the slopes had been prepared with man-made snow in an area with very little natural snow fall, it put the event to the test. The organisers did their best and the first run started on time although the piste was only cleaned from the snow on a small track and visibility was poor. This had little effect on Odermatt, who set the best run time. Surprisingly next to him was Stefan Brennsteiner with bib number 12 and he missed the top time by only 0.04 seconds. Faivre came third another 0.04 seconds and Kristoffersen in fourth was again 0.04 seconds back. In difficult circumstances the first ten were close together and within a second, just behind was Pinturault, who was already 1.06 seconds behind Odermatt.

On the second run Pinturault was able to improve to fifth place overall and the bronze and silver medals went to Faivre and Žan Kranjec, who improved from eighth place after the first run with the best time in the second run. After Brennsteiner could only finish 27th after a big mistake, Odermatt set the second-best run time to finally win gold 0.19 seconds ahead of Kranjec, who was the first ever medallist in this event for Slovenia.

Remarkable in ninth place, after setting the third best time in the second run, was Andorran Joan Verdú, who had never had a top 30 finish in the World Cup, but achieved his country’s best ever Winter Olympics result and equalled the overall best Olympic result for Andorra, being only 3/100ths of a second behind Kristoffersen.

With Odermatt, manufacturer Stöckli won its first gold in Beijing, Rossignol won another silver and Head took bronze, continuing their podium placements with at least one medal in all races held up to this point. Finishing in 44th position was Fayik Abdi, the first ever Winter Olympian from Saudi Arabia, while Richardson Viano from Haiti, who did not finish the race, became the first ever Winter Olympian for his country. Benjamin Alexander from Jamaica became the first Olympic Alpine skier for his nation and Adrian Yung became the first male Olympic Alpine skier from Hong Kong, China.