On Sunday 21st, January 2024 Kitzbühel will host the Classic Slalom in the Ganslernhang.
84 Hahnenkamm Slalom. Kitzbühel (AUT)
January 21st Slalom / Men 1st run 10:15 / 2nd run 13:15 CET
Start Elevation: 1004 m
Finish Elevation: 811 m
Vertical Drop: 193 m
Length: 590 m
Max. slope: 70 %
Average slope: 35 %
With 14 wins Austria has claimed the most wins in the Hahnenkamm Slalom in World Cup history. France follows on 11 wins. The Austrians have not celebrated a victory in Slalom in Kitzbühel since Marcel Hirscher's won in 2017.
Ingemar Stenmark (5), Jean Noël Augert (3), and Marc Girardelli (3) are the only skiers to have won the Hahnenkamm World Cup Slalom more than twice.
The last 10 Hahnenkamm Slalom races were won by skiers from seven different countries: Marcel Hirscher for Austria in 2013 and 2017; Henrik Kristoffersen for Norway in 2016 and 2018; Daniel Yule for Switzerland in 2020 and 2023, Dave Ryding for Great Britain in 2022; Clement Noël for France in 2019; Mattias Hargin for Sweden in 2015; and Felix Neureuther for Germany in 2014.
Manuel Feller secured the fourth Austrian victory in the fourth Slalom race of the season in Wengen. It's his fifth World Cup victory and his third one of the season after winning in Gurgl and Adelboden.
The 31-year-old Austrian skier became the first man to win three World Cup Slalom races in a single season since Clément Noël and Daniel Yule both won three events in 2019-2020. Feller can become the first man to win four World Cup Slalom races in a single season since Marcel Hirscher won five in the 2018-2019 winter season.
Feller, Marco Schwarz, Michael Matt, and Dominik Raschner claimed seven out of a possible twelve podium places in the first four Men's World Cup Slalom events this season.
After Wengen's win, Manuel Feller is leading the Salom standings with 345 points. In 2023 Manuel Feller finished in fifth place in the Slalom standings.
Atle Lie McGrath finished in second place behind Feller in the last two World Cup Slalom races, missing out on the victory by a small margin in Adelboden (+0.02 seconds) and Wengen (+0.10). He was back on the podium again after recovering from a second ACL operation in February 2023. He claimed his two career World Cup slalom victories in March 2022 (back-to-back wins in Flachau and Courchevel).
Henrik Kristoffersen finished in second place in the Slalom standings and won the Slalom gold medal at the 2023 Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel-Méribel. Previously the 29-year-old Norwegian had won a bronze medal in 2021 at Cortina d'Ampezzo and at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.
Henrik Kristoffersen has won the Slalom Crystal Globe three times (2015-2016, 2019-2020, and 2021-2022). He aims to become the fourth male alpine skier to win the Slalom Title more than three times, after Ingemar Stenmark (8), Marcel Hirscher (6), and Alberto Tomba (4).
The Norwegian was four times on the podium last season, twice in the first position: Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Wengen.
Kristoffersen, with 51 podiums, including 23 wins in this discipline, is in fourth position in the ranking of most podiums in Slalom. Only three other men have won more podium finishes in World Cup Slalom events than Kristoffersen: Ingemar Stenmark (81), Marcel Hirscher (65), and Alberto Tomba (57).
Kristoffersen can become this season the second male skier to achieve at least one World Cup victory in 11 consecutive seasons after Alberto Tomba did so from 1987-1988 to 1997-1998.
Kristoffersen is the only Norwegian to have won the Hahnenkamm Slalom. He won in the Ganslernhang in 2016, and 2018.
Dave Ryding finished in third place in Madonna di Campiglio. It's his 7th podium in the Alpine Ski World Cup. Ryding became in Italy the second-oldest man to record a World Cup Slalom podium finish, after Giuliano Razzoli's third place in Wengen on January 16, 2022, at 37 years and 29 days.
He finished in fourth place in the Opening Slalom in Gurgl, missing the podium by merely 0.01 seconds. 37-year-old Ryding could become the second skier (male or female) to claim a World Cup victory after turning 37. Didier Cuche claimed four Alpine Ski World Cup wins after his 37th birthday in the 2011-2012 season.
He could become the oldest man to record a World Cup Slalom podium finish.
Ryding made history in the Hahnenkamm Slalom on January 22, 2022, as he became the first skier representing Great Britain to achieve a World Cup victory in Alpine Ski.
Timon Haugan, 6th in Gurgl, 4th in Madonna di Campiglio, 9th in Adelboden, and 9th in Wengen, is the only skier besides Manuel Feller to have finished inside the Top-10 in all Slalom World
Cup races this season.
Daniel Yule was fourth in the Slalom standings. He won the World Cup Slalom races in Madonna di Campiglio and Kitzbühel last season and finished third in Chamonix.
The 30-year-old Swiss skier can equal his best season in 2019-2020 when he became the only Swiss man so far to win three Men's Slalom World Cup events in a single campaign.
Daniel Yule won two of the last three World Cup Slalom races on the Ganslernhang (2020, and 2023).
Clement Noël finished in second place in the Night Slalom in Madonna di Campiglio. The Olympic Champion in Beijing celebrated his 21st World Cup podium in Slalom. The last time the 26-year-old French skier finished on the podium was in Palisades Tahoe on February 26, 2023.
Noël won the Hahnenkamm Slalom in 2019.
Ramon Zenhäusern finished in third place in the Slalom standings. He won the last race of the 2022-2023 winter season in Soldeu, Andorra. It's his third podium and second win of last season. After more than two years, he has won the Slalom event at the "Verte des Houches" piste in Chamonix. He won two Slalom World Cup events in a single season for the first time.
Two-time Junior World Champion Alexander Steen Olsen won a thrilling Slalom at Palisades Tahoe last season. But the 22-year-old Norwegian had to endure a long wait to celebrate his first career World Cup victory. Only after minutes of deliberation and the subsequent disqualification of the AJ Ginnis, -the officials determined the Greek skier straddled a gate-, the Norwegian was the winner.
AJ Ginnis finished second in the Men's slalom World Cup event in Chamonix on February 4th. He can become the first Greek winner of a World Cup event in any Olympic winter sport. The most recent countries to win their first World Cup event in Alpine Skiing both achieved this in the men's Slalom event: Kalle Palander for Finland (Kitzbühel, January 2003) and Dave Ryding for Great Britain (Kitzbühel, January 2022).
He won the Slalom silver medal at the 2023 Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel-Méribel.
Linus Straßer has not finished on the podium in a World Cup slalom event since a third place in Adelboden in 2023. Straßer aims to become the first German to record a podium finish
in the Kitzbühel World Cup Slalom since Fritz Dopfer finished third in 2016.
Dominik Raschner recorded a World Cup podium in the Slalom for the first time last week in Adelboden. Previously two 16th places - in Adelboden and Kitzbühel in 2022 - were his best results in Slalom. His only World Cup podium was in the Parallel discipline in Lech-Zürs in 2021.
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