Contested under heavy snowfall, the first leg of the Kitzbühel slalom saw three men make the difference, for the moment. The Italian Alex Vinatzer, the French Clément Noël and the Norwegian Sebastian Foss-Solevaag, the leader of the World Cup in the specialty, stand in 10 hundredths.
Starting with bib n°1, Noël outdistanced all his opponents, before Vinatzer, bib n°12, beat him by 0”08, after having been in the lead from the first intermediate time. Foss-Solevaag completes the provisional podium (+0”09). Behind, a gap has been made, since the Italian Giuliano Razzoli is fourth at 0”73.
“In the end, it’s pretty good in terms of ranking”
” The sensations were not very good, it was difficult to run in these conditions, commented Clément Noël. The snow was quite wavey, I had trouble getting my footing. When I reached the bottom, I told myself that it was not a good run, but in the end it was difficult for everyone to put down their skis. In the end, it’s pretty good in terms of ranking. We are three in the same tenth, we find the skiers who are going fast at the moment, it should be a good fight in the second run, we will try to go flat out. »
Alexis Pinturault was ranked seventh (+0”91). ” It’s not easy with the snow, which stuck to my mask, did he declare. The further down I went, the less I saw. At the end of the round, I even had trouble situating myself, I was ”sitting” for no reason. It’s still a good race, we’re probably going to have identical conditions later on. »