(Reuters) – Swiss Olympic champion Marco Odermatt won the super-G event in Bormio, Italy on Thursday to extend his lead atop the overall World Cup standings.
Odermatt beat Austria’s Vincent Kriechmayr by 0.64 seconds, while Loic Meillard took third place, 1.22 seconds behind his Swiss compatriot.
The 25-year-old Odermatt has now racked up five wins this season and leads the overall World Cup standings by 329 points from Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde.
“It was a perfect run, nearly, especially from split one to the finish,” Odermatt said. “It was a very difficult race, icy, a difficult course, you had to ski smart I guess, and use a little bit tactics, but it worked out for me.
“I had the feeling it was fast, but that I was one step ahead. Yesterday I was always one step behind, and that makes it so much easier.”
Earlier on Thursday, three-time Olympic champion Matthias Mayer of Austria announced his retirement from the sport.
After the event, second-placed Kriechmayr said that the retirement had affected Austrian skiers.
“I tried my best but it was not the easiest day for us,” Kriechmayr said. “Matthias was our leader and he helped the younger guys and all of us a lot, so it was not easy.”
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
