Marco Odermatt won the Giant Slalom in Aspen to remain undefeated. Loic Meillard finished in second place +0.14 seconds behind Odermatt. Atle Lie McGrath rounded out the podium 0.81 seconds off the pace. It's the 36th World Cup victory and 22nd in Giant Slalom for the 2023-2024 Overall winner. Last week, he claimed the Overall World Cup title for the third consecutive season with a win in the Palisades Tahoe Giant Slalom.
Marco Odermatt has won each of the eight World Cup Giant Slalom races this season. Only Ingemar Stenmark (all 10 in 1978-1979) has had a longer winning streak from the beginning of a season in Men's World Cup Giant Slalom.
The 26-year-old skier finished on the podium in each of his last 25 starts in World Cup Giant Slalom races (including 20 wins), since 11th place in Lenzerheide on March 20, 2021.
He is the third skier - male or female - to have claimed at least 11 successive World Cup victories in a specific discipline, after Ingemar Stenmark in the Men's Giant Slalom (14, 1978-1979) and Annemarie Moser-Pröll in the Women's Downhill (11, 1972-1974).
Odermatt (2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024) became the third Swiss male skier to win the Giant Slalom World Cup standings at least three times, after Michael von Grüningen (4) and Pirmin Zurbriggen (3).
"It was probably the toughest fight this season. It’s difficult to find the perfect set-up with today´s conditions. The altitude and the high temperatures took a lot of energy and I'm just glad that it went well. It may look easy, but it takes so much energy, also mentally. Happy that I still had enough energy to win", Odermatt said.
For all-rounder Loic Meillard, it's his third season podium. A Super-G podium in January in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a Slalom podium in February in Slalom, and now a Giant Slalom podium in Aspen.
“It feels amazing. GS has been tough. A lot of lows, more lows than highs actually. So to come back on the podium, it’s great. I know where I lost it. It wasn’t great the last banana for the last part. It’s on me I can’t say any different but at least I know that I can be faster than him and that’s important," Meillard said.
It's the first time this season Atle Lie McGrath finished on the podium and the second time he ended in the Top-3 in Giant Slalom.
"Once I realized I was on the podium, I just started to cry. I couldn’t stop it because there’s been so many things going on these past three years. It was kind of a full-circle moment. It’s been very tough for me in GS with a lot of injuries and Giant Slalom is a tough event and you have to risk it a lot and I maybe haven’t always been in a good position to risk it," said McGrath.
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