Alpine skiing: Schmid sees himself “on a very good track”

Alexander Schmid was happy, it couldn’t be overlooked, even if half of his face was hidden behind a mask. “My shape fits very well,” he said with shining eyes through the black fabric, “I’m on the right track.” In fact: At the giant slalom in Santa Caterina, Italy, the 26-year-old Allgäu took a good ninth place in the second top World Cup victory of Swiss Marco Odermatt.

“My performance, skiing, worked very well, you can take advantage of it,” emphasized Schmid after the race, which had been postponed from Sunday to Monday due to snowfall.

Aside from two third places in parallel races, it was only his second trip to the middle of the world elite in giant slalom after his sixth place three years ago in Val d’Isere / France. “Everything has to fit together so you can get up front,” he said.

Since the beginning of the season, things have been getting better and better: 15th place in the first giant slalom of the season in Sölden / Austria, then third place in the parallel race in Lech / Zürs and 11th place on Saturday in the first giant slalom – and now another improvement: the shape curve on the sometimes overly cautious Schmid is constantly pointing up at the moment. “I am confident for the next races,” he assured. You can prove it on December 20 at the Alta Badia / Italy classic.

Schmid’s teammate Stefan Luitz, on the other hand, is still looking for the right swing. After his retirement from Saturday’s race, this time he finished 17th. “It bothers me a bit because there would have been a lot of things,” said the 28-year-old from Allgäu.

“The way I went skiing” was not enough, “the last thing is missing.” After the first race, Luitz had already complained that he still “missed a little bit of self-confidence.”

Marco Odermatt has no doubts about his ability these days. In the third giant slalom of the season, he took the podium for the third time; For the first time in his career, however, he was at the top of this discipline after the Super-G a year ago at Beaver Creek / US With success ahead of Tommy Ford (US / + 0 , 73 seconds) and Filip Zubcic (Croatia / + 0.75), who had won the race on Saturday, Odermatt also gave the Swiss his first giant slalom victory since Carlo Janka’s. 2011 in Kranjska Gora / Slovenia.

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