Slalom, Men

The last individual men’s Alpine skiing event in PyeongChang was the slalom, as usual. The big favorite was Marcel Hirscher, who had already won the Alpine combined and giant slalom in PyeongChang. He had won four of the last five World Cup Crystal Globes in slalom (2012/13, 2013/14, 2015/16, and 2016/17) and was also in the lead in the seasonal slalom World Cup. He was also the 2017 World Champion. His primary challenger was Henrik Kristoffersen, who won the slalom World Cup in 2015/16 and was also in second place in the slalom World Cup. These two were also the silver (Hirscher) and bronze (Kristoffersen) medalists from Sochi, while the gold medalist from four years ago, Mario Matt, had since retired. The two city events held this winter, which counted for the slalom World Cup, were won by André Myhrer and Ramon Zenhäusern. Also considered medal contenders were Michael Matt and Daniel Yule, who had had good seasonal performances.

Kristoffersen, bib #4, took the lead with a great run and when Hirscher started just behind him with bib #5 everyone expected an exciting battle, but Hirscher’s run ended after 22 seconds when he missed a gate. It was the first time in two years that he did not finish a slalom, since February 2016 in Naeba, Japan. The first run ended with Myhrer in second place only 0.21 seconds behind Kristoffersen and the surprise Victor Muffat-Jeandet in third. The first nine finishers up to Zenhäusern were within a second.

In the second run Matt, coming from 12th position, set the fastest run time and took the lead until Zenhäusern took the course, finishing only 0.01 seconds slower in this run, and topping the ranking 0.33 seconds ahead of Matt. In a thrilling race the Frenchmen Clément Noël, Alexis Pinturault, and also Muffat-Jeandet, all placed only a blink behind Matt. Myhrer, who was in second after the first run as in Sochi, when he went out in the second run, but this time he did much better and took the lead. So all eyes were on Kristoffersen, but he went out in 11 seconds, missing a gate like Hirscher, leaving gold for Myhrer.

After Mario Matt became the oldest ever slalom Olympic champion in Sochi, Myhrer set a new age record to become the oldest slalom gold medalist in Olympic history aged 35-042, only nine days younger than Aksel Lund Svindal in his downhill win seven days before. The silver for Zenhäusern was the Switzerland’s first Olympic medal in men’s slalom since Edy Reinalter won gold back in 1948.

With Michael Matt winning bronze, he continued the family tradition, after his brothers Andreas (silver in Vancouver) and Mario (gold in Sochi) had won medals at the previous Games to give the Matt family a full set of medals. The gold medal was the second for Sweden, after Ingemar Stenmark’s win in 1980, and, as Frida Hansdotter won gold six days earlier in the women’s slalom, both slalom golds went to Sweden. This was the second time in history a nation was able to win both slalom titles at the Olympics after Marielle Goitschel and Jean-Claude Killy respectively did so for France in 1968. Myhrer won the race using Head skis, while Zenhäusern and Matt both skied Rossignol.