As in 2014 in Sochi, when Steve Missilier and Alexis Pinturault had surrounded the winner Ted Ligety, will France place two of its skiers on the podium of the giant slalom of the Beijing Olympics along with the favorite?
Reigning world champion but behind this season (5th as best result), Mathieu Faivre found sensations at the best time by signing a hot start (best time in the first intermediate) on a track as he likes them, with soft snow , just fallen.
Not bothered by poor visibility, Faivre estimated that he had delivered only one round “correct” while he finally set the third fastest time just eight hundredths behind the big favorite, the Swiss Marco Odermatt (winner of four of the five World Cup giants this season), best time despite a big mistake towards the halfway point, and four by Austrian Stefan Brennsteiner.
The second Frenchman to be well placed at the end of this first round is not the holder of the World Cup in the discipline Alexis Pinturault. Relegated out of the top 10 (11th) more than a second (1”06) from Odermatt, the Savoyard continues to experience difficult Olympics after in particular his fault in the combined slalom which had cost him a bruise on the right shoulder.
Pinturault therefore left the light – so to speak this Sunday – to Thibaut Favrot, never entered the top 10 this season but fifth in the first round at 19 hundredths from Odermatt, just behind another reference, the Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen.