Kristoffersen takes overall men's slalom lead after weekend sweep in Germany
Defeats Dave Ryding by 35-100ths of a second for 5th career World Cup podium
Henrik Kristoffersen completed a turnaround of his World Cup slalom season Sunday with his second win in two days.
The Norwegian was coming off a below-par start to his 2021-22 campaign, which included no top-10 results and two DNFs in his first four races, prompting him to replace his long-term ski technician.
Now, the Norwegian is the first skier this season with multiple slalom victories with the previous seven races featuring seven different winners.
And leading the slalom standings by 49 points with two races remaining, he is on course to win his third career season title.
Kristoffersen came from behind to earn his 21st slalom victory Sunday after the top three skiers from the first run all failed to finish in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
Kristoffersen was eighth after the opening leg but took the lead with the fourth-fastest time in the final run for a combined time of one minute 52.66 seconds. He then watched as the next seven racers all failed to beat his time, with four of them not even making it to the finish.
"That's a shame, that's never how you want to win it but, still, this is part of the game, part of the sport, so I'm super happy for another win," Kristoffersen said.
WATCH | Kristoffersen 1st man with multiple slalom wins this season:
The top three after the first run — Swiss skiers Loic Meillard and Ramon Zenhausern and Austria's Johannes Strolz — straddled a gate on the icy course, where the first few gates were set to create unusually sharp turns, making it hard to find rhythm from the start.
Meillard had taken a big lead of more than half a second in the opening run, mastering the icy Gudiberg course and finishing 0.51 seconds ahead of Zenhausern and Strolz, who clocked the same time.
Conditions had changed from Saturday's race as freezing temperatures overnight made the top layer harder and more slippery, causing several racers problems with the tuning setup of their skis.
"It was not easy to get the right feeling under your feet: it was partly aggressive, partly icy. I just tried to stay calm," Meillard said after the opening run.
As it got warmer for the second run, the course surface weakened a bit, but "it was still slick in some spots," according to Kristoffersen.
It was a course for real men in the second run.— Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen on the icy Gudiberg course
World champion Sebastian Foss-Solevag also straddled and failed to score World Cup points.
The course was set by Tristan Glasse-Davies, the coach of Dave Ryding, and suited the British skier well, as he climbed from 19th to second, 0.35 behind Kristoffersen in 1:53.01.
5th career podium
"He knows what I like, and he set what I like," Ryding said. "We did it, so good teamwork in the end."
Ryding's fifth career podium came five weeks after he became the first British winner in the World Cup at the prestigious slalom in Kitzbuhel.
"It was a course for real men in the second run," Kristoffersen said. "This is not for the boys, this is for the men, for sure."
Germany's Linus Strasser (1:53.13) was 0.47 behind in third, and Lucas Braathen improved from 24th to fourth.
Calgary's Erik Read was 16th of 21 finishers in 1:54.30.
Braathen lost his lead in the slalom standings to teammate Kristoffersen, who has 356 points. Braathen is second on 307, Strasser third on 278.
The season calendar includes two more slaloms: a night race in Flachau on March 9 and the season closer at the World Cup Finals in Meribel starting on March 14.
Olympic champion Clement Noel skied out for the second straight day and is out of the race for the season slalom title.
With files from CBC Sports
