Kristoffersen joins Norway's World Cup party with slalom win

Kristoffersen joins Norway's World Cup party with slalom win
By Euronews
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Hello and welcome to Gravity. The Swiss resort of Wengen was colonized by Norwegians. After the victories of Kjetil Jansrud and Aksel Lund Svindal

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Hello and welcome to Gravity.

The Swiss resort of Wengen was colonized by Norwegians. After the victories of Kjetil Jansrud and Aksel Lund Svindal , Henrik Kristoffersen invited himself to the party by winning the slalom.

It’s not often you see two Italian on the podium. The last time that happened was six years ago. But they were upstaged by Henrik Kristoffersen.

Kristoffersen’s World Cup slalom win made it a happy hunting ground for Norway at Switzerland’s signature Alpine resort.

It was his fourth win in five slaloms this season.

The 21 year old extended his lead at the top of the standings on Sunday as chief rival Marcel Hirscher of Austria failed to complete his second run.

Kristoffersen set the pace in the first run and held off all challengers to take the 100 points on offer for first place. Second place went to Italy’s 2010 Olympic slalom champion Giuliano Razzoli, who crossed the line 0.30 seconds behind.

Stefano Gross of Italy, who’s only World Cup victory was a win at Adelboden, Switzerland, in 2015, took third.

Kristoffersen is third in the overall World Cup standings, behind Austria’s Hirscher and fellow Norwegian Aksel Lund Svindal.

Norway now have 12 wins in 19 men’s World Cup events this season. While Wengen provided the Norwegians with a joyous weekend, it was rather unkind to Hirscher yet again. The Austrian missed the chance to take back the standings lead from Svindal.

The four-time defending overall champion has 36 career World Cup wins but came away from Wengen with nothing after nine tries.

After Wengen the next stop is Kitzbühel for another classic. The downhill scheduled for Saturday on Streif will be the most anticipated race of the year. To speak to us about it, we have former Olympic champion Franck Piccard:

“This course is one of the monuments of skiing with an extraordinary ambiance. It is really difficult slope at the start. Then you plunge into the mausefalle at around 80mph. This really hits you in the stomach. The fear mounts little by little. I’m not sure if it’s really fear.Maybe it’s stage fright that athletes can have.

“They want to perform on this slope because of all the history of alpine skiing that is there. And at the same time, we don’t know if we will have what it takes to succeed. It’s a balancing act of being brave and humble. But that stops there. Don’t try and overdo it otherwise you will crash, and then it’s all over.”

In Austria, Alpine skiing is almost a religion and Hermann Maier akin to a living God. It is in his resort and his slope that the Women’s World cup has made stopover. And the result: two successes in slalom for Veronika Velez-Zuzulova and a giant win by Viktoria Rebensburg.

Olympic champion in 2010 yet Viktoria Rebensburg. had not won in three years. But the German made amends by thriving in the poor weather to end her drought.

Rebensburg trailed Ana Drev by .04 seconds after the first run but completed the two heats .94 seconds ahead of the Slovenian despite racing through heavy snow in the second run.

Drev made the podium for the first time in her career Federica Brignone of Italy finished third,

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Last week, in “Skiing Past,” we spoke to you about Annemarie Moser-Pröll, who for a long time held the record for the amount of races won in the World Cup. Today, we take a closer look at the one who erased her long-held landmark just one year ago..

On January 18th 2015, The American Lindsey Vonn claimed her 62nd success on the circuit by winning the downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the north of Italy. But the 31 year old, who does not like to share the spotlight did not remain long in the shadows of Annemarie Moser-Pröll. The next day, on the same track she won the Super G to notch up an all-time women’s record.

Vonn, who has won four World Cup overall championships—one of only two female skiers to do so, has 73 wins and only Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden with 86 World Cup victories has more

Lindsey Vonn will have the opportunity to get closer to this record with the downhill and the super-giant planned the next weekend exactly in Cortina d’Ampezzo. In the meantime, we leave you with the most beautiful images of the races of Wengen.

It’s snowtime.

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