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Marco Odermatt didn’t really feel comfortable with his comeback to the competition in Cortina.
Marcel W. Perrenski reporter
Marco Odermatt’s father Walti is a particularly great admirer of Pirmin Zurbriggen (59). “Pirmin is an absolute giant for me as an athlete and as a person,” says the civil engineer.
And what Walti’s 25-year-old son has performed in the last eight days is strongly reminiscent of the heroic saga of the four-time overall World Cup winner from Upper Valais. Like Zurbriggen in 1985, Odermatt injured his meniscus on the Hahnenkamm downhill run in Kitzbühel. At that time, Pirmin won the gold medal in the World Cup downhill just under three weeks after an arthroscopy.
Odermatt didn’t have to go under the knife, but during the first ski training session on Wednesday, four days after the “Streif” shock, the bruises and bruises in his knee still bothered him a lot. “During this first test, I felt like I hadn’t just been away for a few days, but for a long time,” admits the man from Nidwalden.
“I never expected a personal best”Marco Odermatt
He didn’t feel really good at the start of the race in Cortina either: “Mentally, I never got into the usual flow, I couldn’t really focus on the race. When I scored the first goals, I mainly thought about my knee. And when I crossed the finish line, while I was convinced that this ride was good for my confidence, I never expected a best time.”
Odermatt surpasses his youth idol
In this case, however, the giant slalom Olympic champion was wrong – he won 35 hundredths ahead of Norway’s superstar Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and thus celebrated his 17th World Cup victory.
With his seventh triumph in Super-G, Odermatt has overtaken his great youth idol Didier Cuche in the all-time ranking of this division. Only one Swiss has more Super G World Cup victories to his credit – Pirmin Zurbriggen, he has won ten times in this discipline.
But it would have been a teammate who would have prevented Odermatt’s comeback victory by a hair’s breadth. After his huge success in Schladming, Loïc Meillard (26) is sensationally getting going in the technically very difficult Cortina Super G, in the last split he is twelve hundredths faster than Odermatt. But then the Valaisan is eliminated.
Thus, in addition to the all-outstanding winner, Justin Murisier (11th place), only one Swiss ranked in the top 15. The skiing comrades already have the chance for a better team result on Sunday, when another super G is started. Good for us: Reto Nydegger, Head of Swiss Ski Downhill, was drawn to set the course.