The Albany Gazette - Kristoffersen completes weekend double with slalom victory

Kristoffersen led a Norwegian one-two with Timon Haugen second while Austria's Manuel Feller was third on a course set by his coach.

Kristoffersen was tied for sixth fastest in the first run, but coped best as the ruts deepened for the late starters in the second run.

The early starters had a marked advantage, with veteran Frenchman Victor Muffat-Jeandet, who had finished 26th on the first run, recording comfortably the fastest time - the 35-year-old went on to finish sixth.

Even though he had some bumpy moments, Kristoffersen was the best of the late starters to total 1min 39.26sec and edge Haugen by 0.17sec. Feller was 0.23sec back, nudging Loic Meillard, the halfway leader, off the podium by 0.01sec.

"I still messed up the top and second part a little bit," said Kristoffersen. "Very tight today. Lucky to be on the right side of the hundreds."

Kristoffersen started the day three points ahead of Clement Noel in the slalom standings. The Frenchman began his second descent with a 0.22sec edge over the Norwegian, but was the slowest of the 24 skiers who finished and dropped to 10th, 0.99sec behind the winner.

That allowed Kristoffersen to increase his points total in the discipline standings to 567, 77 ahead of Noel.

In the overall standings, the Norwegian tightened his grip on second place with 946 points but is still 360 behind Swiss speed specialist Marco Odermatt.

For Kristoffersen, a World Champion in giant slalom in 2019 and in slalom in 2023 this was a 33rd World Cup victory, yet it was still marked a first.

He noted that he had scored "double weekends" before, but always when both races were in the same even - either slalom or giant slalom - and had several times just missed a slalom/giant slalom sweep, finishing first in one and second in the other.

"This was a big goal for me," the 30-year-old said. "So I'm very happy with my day."

(C.Young--TAG)