Giant Slalom, Men

The fourth men’s Alpine ski race was held as scheduled on Wednesday, 19 February. The start of the piste within the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center was located at an altitude of 1,370 metres right above “Big Pan” and followed almost the lower part of the downhill course. There was only one clear favorite, American Ted Ligety. He won the World Championships in giant slalom in both 2011 and 2013 as well as the giant slalom World Cup in 2010/11 and 2012/13. He had also won three of the five World Cup giant slaloms in the current season, in Sölden, Beaver Creek, and St. Moritz. The slope here in Sochi was described as similar to Beaver Creek which was also an advantage for Ligety. His biggest challengers were expected to be Marcel Hirscher, silver medalist at the 2013 World Championships and giant slalom World Cup winner in 2011/12, who won two races in this winter at Val d’Isère and Alta Badia, Felix Neureuther who won the World Cup giant slalom in Adelboden, Alexis Pinturault, and the silver medalist from Vancouver, and Kjetil Jansrud, who had already won two medals in Sochi. But Neureuther was handicaped after a car accident in Germany only five days before, causing whiplash. The current giant slalom World Cup standings saw Hirscher in the lead with Pinturault second, Ligety third, and Fanara fourth.

Pinturault was first down on the first run, and posted a challenging time of 1:22.44. This held the lead until his compatriot Thomas Fanara (FRA) bettered the time by just 0.03 seconds. Shortly afterwards Ligety posted a time of 1:21.08 which put him in the lead after the first run. No skier approached Ligety’s time, the best of the rest being surprising Ondřej Bank (CZE) who was 0.93 seconds behind, Davide Simoncelli (ITA) at 1.27 seconds behind and Matthias Mayer (AUT) who trailed by 1.33 seconds in the same time as Fanara.

With the top 30 going in reverse order on the second run, the first skier to make an impression on the medal positions was Steve Missillier (FRA), 10th after the first run, but in what was to prove the fastest time of the second run in 1:23.19, which put him into the lead with a combined time of 2:45.77. Pinturault then came close but failed by 0.16 seconds to overtake his compatriot. Fanara, Mayer and Simoncelli went without challenging the leaders, and for a while Hirscher found himself in bronze medal position. Bank was next on the course but, perhaps with memories of missing out in the Super Combined event when lying second, only managed the 15th fastest second run and slipped down to eventually finish fifth. Going last Ligety did not have the best race, and his 1.50 second lead over Missillier was gradually eroded, but he just held on to post a combined time of 2:45.29 and take the gold medal, ahead of the two Frenchmen.

Ligety won the fifth gold medal at this Games for skiing manufacturer Head, while Salomon won silver and bronze. Ondřej Bank achieved the best ever Alpine skiing result for a Czech men by finishing fifth. Finishing in 57th place was Luke Henri Steyn remarkable as being the first ever Winter Games competitor for Zimbabwe.