WORLD CUP BANSKO. A week after their disappoint results at the World Championships slalom at Garmisch-Partenkirchen where former two-time gold medallist Mario Matt missed the podium by only a few hundredths of a second, the Austrian slalom team seems ready to celebrate its first win for a long time! Since Marcel Hirscher first slalom win at Val d’Isère in early December, skiers from Sweden (Andre Myhrer) Croatia (Ivica Kostelic) and France (Jean Baptiste Grange) dominated the speciality.

Matt, who has no won a slalom rave since the 2009 Finals at Are, clocked the fastest time in the firsh run of Bansko slalom, besting by only 12/100 of a second his teammate Reinfried Herbst while Myhrer came in 3rd with a delay of 38th .

‘JB’ Grange who wore bib number 1, didn’t find his usual smooth rhythm on the bumpy and challenging Banderezia slope and had to be content with the seventh best time this morning, losing nearly seven tenth on Matt.

A group of motivated skiers managed to finish ahead of him – Canada’s Mike Janyk, Stephano Gross and Christian Deville both from Italy was a little faster than the new slalom World Champion.

Another favourite had an even harder destiny – Kostelic straddled a gate after clocking a promising new best intermediate time, forcing him to give up the race. It’s the first time since the slalom at Zagreb, in January 2010, that the 2003 slalom World Champion failed to finish a slalom run!

His absence at the start of the second run may well influence the tactic of some of the favorits including Grange, who has the chance to score a lot of precious points in the slalom standings. A three-time winner on the World Cup tour this winter, Grange was less than hundred points behind Kostelic in the slalom classification prior this next-to-last slalom before the Finals at Lenzerheide.

Grange clinched the slalom globe back in 2009 and he certainly aims to get another crystal globe in March after having collected the coveted gold medal at Garmisch-Partenkirchen last Sunday.

Yet the skier to beat may well be Mario Matt today. The Austrian veteran achieved a series of impressive runs last month, especially at Adelboden where he came in 4th despite starting the first run in 43rd position!

“It would be great to get back on the podium today after missing it at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, I feel confident and I know I can ski really well in my second runs,” the Tyrolian explained after his run. “It would mean a lot to me after all the tough time I faced at the start of the season.”

Patrick Lang

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