At the age of 35, Swiss racer Thomas Tumler finally won his first World Cup after conquering a difficult Beaver Creek slope with two clean runs in the men’s giant slalom.
Tumler, who finished on the podium just three times in his 123 races, admitted: “I have no words at the moment; it’s like a dream.”
With a cumulative time of two minutes 27.60 seconds, Tumler was 0.12 seconds quicker than Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, who made history as the first Brazilian to place on the podium in the World Cup. Third place went to Zan Kranjec, the Slovenian Olympic silver medallist, with a time of 2:28.18.
With Marco Odermatt winning the Super-G on Saturday and Justin Murisier winning the downhill on Friday, Tumler’s victory completed a Swiss sweep at the Colorado resort this year.
Highlights of the competition
After a flawless first run in 1:16.24, Tumler was more than half a second ahead of the field and at the top of the standings.
However, Braathen held him back, cutting his second run time in 1:10.41 and briefly taking the lead in the leaderboard by nearly seven seconds off his own opening-leg performance.
Halfway through his last run, Tumler’s skis stumbled, but the Swiss remained composed and pulled off the rest of the race before cheering and tumbling onto the snow in celebration of his win.
Source: CNA