Marco Schwarz Produced a Silk Second Run to Win

Adelboden, Switzerland, Jan 10 (AFP/APP): Austria’s Marco Schwarz produced a slick second run to win the World Cup slalom and climb the top of the discipline rankings at Adelboden on Sunday.

The Austrian can thank a tentative second run from Frenchman Clement Noel, who was last man out of the gate as leader of the first run but who eventually finished eighth. Noel complained of ruts in the hard-packed snow which he referred to as “little holes, not my favourite things”.

The piste was partly iced over and with the gates tightly posted any slip was punishable in the shaded areas and that’s what happened to much of the field including Noel.

“But I’m really annoyed with myself for letting that slip, it was there to win and I skied very poorly in the section before the big drop (the famed ‘Ziel Hang’)” explained the 23-year-old from the Vosges mountains in France.

For the 25-year-old Schwarz this was a first World Cup win in the slalom as he finished 0.14sec ahead of Germany’s Linus Strasser while Briton Dave Ryding was third at 0.15. Strasser had been top of the slalom standings ahead of the race but was overtaken by Schwarz who has 249pts to the German’s 233.

The German had never been on a World cup slalom podium before, he now has today’s second place finish to add to his victory in Zagreb last week.

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