Beaver Creek is the second Alpine Ski World Cup Giant Slalom of the 2024-2025 season after the opening race in Sölden.
The 2024 event will be the first men's World Cup giant slalom on the Birds of Prey course in Beaver Creek since December 2019. At that time, the Beaver Creek race weekend concluded with American Tommy Ford winning his first and only career World Cup in front of a home crowd. The American was fastest in the first run and second fastest in the second to finish well ahead of the Norwegian pair of Henrik Kristoffersen (+0.80) and Leif Kristian Nestvold-Haugen (+1.23).
Norway secures a podium clean sweep at the Giant Slalom season opener in Soelden, with Alexander Steen Olsen claiming the top spot, Henrik Kristoffersen finishing second, and Atle Lie McGrath coming in third in the battle for victory.
For 23-year-old Steen Olsen, who made two all-in runs, the first-place in Sölden marks his second Alpine Ski World Cup victory -he won the Palisades Tahoe Slalom in February 2023-, and second Giant Slalom podium finish.
Henrik Kristoffersen finished in second place in Sölden. The Norwegian has won 8 races in Giant Salom in the World Cup and finished on the podium 34 times. In 2021, Kristoffersen surpassed Kjetil André Aamodt (6) for the most World Cup Giant Slalom wins among Norwegian skiers.
Kristoffersen finished in fourth place in the Men's Giant Slalom World Cup standings last season.
Atle McGrath, aged 24, achieved his 10th podium in the Alpine Ski World Cup in Sölden.
Last season, Marco Odermatt was again the absolute dominator of the Giant Slalom discipline. He is the reigning Olympic Champion, World Champion, and World Cup winner in the Men's Giant Slalom for the third consecutive time. In 2024-2025 he is chasing a fourth successive Giant Slalom Crystal Globe and a fourth successive Overall season title.
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).
The 26-year-old Swiss competed in ten Men's Giant Slalom World Cup events last season and won nine (Val d'Isère, Alta Badia (2), Adelboden, Schladming, Bansko, Palisades Tahoe, and Aspen (2). Only Ingemar Stenmark (10 in 1978-1979) has won more Giant Slalom races in a single season.
With 23 wins Odermatt is joint-fourth in the all-time list for most Men's World Cup Giant Slalom victories, alongside von Michael von Grünigen (23). Ingemar Stenmark (46), Marcel Hirscher (31), and Ted Ligety (24) make up theTop-3. He has won 21 out of 29 races in the last three seasons.
Odermatt did not finish the opening Giant Slalom of the season in Sölden.
Last season, after finishing runner-up to Marco Odermatt in both World Cup Giant Slalom races in Aspen, Loic Meillard broke the winning streak of his teammate, who could not finish the second run in Saalbach. Meillard continued his superb late-season form to hand Odermatt his first Giant Slalom defeat after finishing runner-up to Marco Schwarz, by only 0.03 seconds in Palisades Tahoe on February 25, 2023.
Joan Verdu of Andorra finished in second place 0.71 seconds behind Meillard. Thomas Tumler rounded up the unexpected podium 0.79 seconds off the pace.
It was Meillard's second win in the Giant Slalom. His previous discipline victory was in Schladming on January 25, 2023. It was also his fourth consecutive podium and second win in the World Cup last season. The 27-year-old skier from Valais finished in second place in the Giant Slalom standings.
Last season, Filip Zubcic finished two times on a World Cup podium. He was second in Alta Badia, and third in Adelboden. Adelboden's was his 12th career podium in the World Cup. He has won three World Cup Giant Slalom events: in Niigata Yuzawa Naeba (February 22, 2020), Santa Caterina (December 5, 2020), and Bansko (February 27, 2021).
Žan Kranjec finished in second place at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. Kranjec became the second man representing Slovenia to win an Olympic medal in alpine skiing, after Jure Kosir (bronze in the slalom in 1994). Kranjec recorded two World Cup victories, in the Giant Slalom in Saalbach Hinterglemm (2018) and Adelboden (2020). He has finished on the podium 14 times in the World Cup, all in the Giant Slalom.
Kranjec (2) hopes to equal Jure Kosir (3) on most World Cup victories among men representing Slovenia.
In Sölden, 22-year-old Norwegian sensation Lucas Braathen finished in fourth place in his debut race for his new country, Brazil. He has won two Giant Slalom World Cup races in his career while representing Norway: Sölden in 2020 and Alta Badia in 2022. In 2020 Braathen stole the show in the opening race of the 2020-2021 Alpine Ski World Cup in Sölden when he edged out Swiss Marco Odermatt by 0.06 seconds to claim his first victory and podium at the World Cup. At just 20 years old, he was also the youngest-ever winner at Sölden.
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