Beijing Olympics, men’s giant: Odermatt leads, De Aliprandini 6th in the first heat

Marco Odermatt is in the lead after the first heat of the Beijing 2022 Olympic giant, but Luca De Aliprandini is in full swing for a medal. Fresh from the bad fall of Adelboden which forced him to devote himself more to physiotherapy than to training on skis in recent weeks, De Aliprandini is sixth at 49/100 from Odermatt. The World Cup leader who has won 4 Cup giants so far this season is the fastest in 1’02 “93, then there are three other athletes in a handful of cents: the Austrian Stefan Brennsteiner (at 4 / 100), the Frenchman Mathieu Faivre (at 8/100), the Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen (at 12/100) and the other French Favrot (at 19/100). In addition to De Aliprandini, there are 4 other athletes less than a second behind the leader: Feller (at 74/100), Kranjec (at 78/100), Radamus (at 86/100) and Caviezel (at 97/100). Then Pinturault at 1 ”06 and Lucas Braathen at 1” 27.

The race

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It was a first round complicated by heavy snow and reduced visibility. Luca De Aliprandini, second to start after Kristoffersen, remained close to the best up to two thirds of the race and lost 4 tenths in the last 13 seconds of the race. “You can’t see anything” he commented on the finish line. Then with a cool head: “I thought worse. At the finish I thought I had taken three seconds, I really didn’t see anything, I didn’t trust it. Now see that I’m half a second behind the leader … Not bad come on. The first are close to each other, but doing a good heat … Four or five tenths is nothing, the track is short but if the visibility improves there will be no problems. Second heat to the attack. No back and ankle problems “. The blue had fallen a month ago in Adelboden and has only been back on skis for ten days.

The other blues

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There are two other Azzurri in the race: Tommaso Sala, at the start with bib number 39, and Alex Vinatzer, who starts with number 44.