Marco Odermatt is unable to defend his World Champion title in the giant slalom. In fourth place, the Swiss athlete misses out on the medals and is accordingly disappointed afterwards.
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- Marco Odermatt is unable to defend his World Championship title in the giant slalom and finishes fourth behind Haaser, Tumler and Meillard.
- A disappointment for the top favorite: "When you come fourth in the giant slalom in my career, you can't be satisfied."
- In the interview, Odermatt also explains how he fell behind and why missing out on a medal hurts twice as much.
For once, Marco Odermatt is unable to live up to the huge expectations. The man from Nidwalden comes fourth in the World Championship giant slalom and misses out on the medals by 0.07 seconds. In an interview with SRF after the race, he spoke of his disappointment: "When you come fourth in the World Championship giant slalom in my career, you can't be satisfied." Nevertheless, little was missing and he tried everything.
Odermatt then explains why it wasn't enough: "Unfortunately, I make a big mistake at the top before the surface, where I then lose a lot of speed. That makes it difficult to catch up." However, Odermatt also puts it into perspective that in the end it was still only half a second behind the world championship title and only a few hundredths off a medal. Without the big mistake, he knows roughly where he would have been.
Odermatt is aware that he is no longer as dominant in the giant slalom as he once was, but has a simple explanation for this: "When you're practically only skiing speed and have a few days to get back into it, that's normal somewhere."
Team combined skipped to win giant slalom medal
Although Marco Odermatt's trump card didn't come up trumps, two Swiss athletes - Thomas Tumler (silver) and Loïc Meillard (bronze) - made it onto the podium. Odermatt, who is considered a great team player and is always happy for his teammates, admits: "Today I probably need a little longer before I can be happy with my colleagues." It was a different situation in the downhill, probably also because super gold was a little closer.
It is particularly bitter for Odermatt that he skipped the team combined, in which the Swiss celebrated a triple victory in his absence, in order to prepare for the giant slalom. "That hurts twice as much, I sacrificed the team combined for that," says Odermatt.
Finally, Odermatt is asked about his summary of the World Championships and, despite everything, draws a fundamentally positive conclusion: "I was able to win the gold medal that was still missing. I'm a three-time world champion. I have gold in every discipline. It's not that bad."
