Does the Odermatt weather take away the chances of the big ball?

After Alexis Pinturault’s mistake in slalom, Marco Odermatt is only 31 points behind the overall leader of the World Cup before the end of the season in Lenzerheide. But does the weather in Switzerland foil Nidwalden’s plans?

Marco Odermatt’s great recovery run continued on Saturday with his victory in the giant slalom at Kranjska Gora. In the giant slalom classification, the 23-year-old managed to overtake Alexis Pinturault and in the general of the World Cup he was 31 points behind the French. And on Sunday there was good news for Odermatt again: Pinturault retired in slalom and failed to gain a comfortable lead before the end of the season at Lenzerheide.

In Graubünden there is still a race in each discipline on the program from Wednesday to Sunday. Odermatt has a chance of scoring points in the sprint races and giant slalom, with the likelihood that Pinturault also completed three of the last four races, even if the technician started the descent. He wanted to focus on the Super-G, the giant and the slalom, the 29-year-old said after his slalom failure in Slovenia. Monday’s first downhill training would come too early for him.

Bad weather forecast

On Sunday afternoon, the race organizers decide to cancel Monday’s practice anyway. “Due to the heavy snowfall, the forecast for tonight and the work in progress on the route, the jury, the organizers and Swiss-Ski have decided to cancel the first downhill training,” the FIS announced in a message.

And the weather forecasts for the next few days are anything but desirable. On Tuesday it should snow all day, as on Wednesday, when the descent is scheduled. The race may even need to be canceled. This would mean that Odermatt would be deprived of the opportunity to compete for the World Cup in general; with an eighth place in the descent he could even surpass Pinturault.

The forecasts for Thursday (Super-G) are not exactly fantastic either. In the end, did Odermatt just get the giant slalom? That would be very little, even for the formally strong Buochser to catch tech specialist Pinturault. It remains to be hoped that Petrus will have a serious word with Ms Holle and that the final races of the World Cup go according to plan. So Marco Odermatt has the best chance of being the first Swiss since Carlo Janka to win the great crystal ball in 2010.