Marco Odermatt claims giant slalom gold at Winter Olympics as blizzard causes havoc in Beijing

Marco Odermatt fulfilled his billing as favourite for giant slalom gold at the Winter Olympics as he shrugged off extremely challenging conditions to win the title in Beijing. Heavy snow and poor visibility caused havoc, with several contenders for the medals struggling to deal with the weather, but the Swiss sensation kept his cool to win ahead of Slovenia's Zan Kranjec and Mathieu Faivre of France.

Ad/> Conditions were tough with heavy snow falling on a course which is put together using manufactured snow, with mist and fog also causing issues with visibility, prompting complaints from some of the skiers. At one stage, the first run looked like it might be cancelled midway through, and the second was delayed by over an hour.

Beijing 2022‘Fricking hell!’ — Jamaica’s first-ever Olympic skier fulfils ‘crazy dream’ with GS runAN HOUR AGO A new giant slalom king was always going to be crowned given 2018 champion Marcel Hirscher retired back in 2019. Since the Austrian’s departure from the sport, Kristoffersen (2020) and Pinturault (2021) both won a giant slalom World Cup crystal globe apiece, although it was Odermatt who headed into the event as favourite having dominated the 2021-22 season so far.

Odermatt leads the giant slalom World Cup standings having won four of the five races, finishing second in the other, and that made the Swiss the man to beat on the ‘Ice River’ course at the Yanqing National Alpine Ski Centre. He was able to rise to the occasion in the opening run, posting the fastest time of 1:09.93 despite the difficult conditions.