2023-12-23 04:23:59
With eight races under his belt, one win, three more podium places and 464 points to his name, ski racer Marco Schwarz goes into the short Christmas break as the leader in the overall World Cup. The plan to compete in all World Cup races by Christmas Eve was realized. Even because one and two competitions were canceled due to the weather, the Carinthian was able to cope with the stress. The journey to Bormio takes place on December 25th.
There the long bars are waiting for the 28-year-old again, as there is a downhill and a Super-G on the program. This gives the Swiss Marco Odermatt the chance to take the top position back from Black. The Swiss are currently only eight points behind Austria’s top performers.
Odermatt, the two-time defending champion in the fight for the big ball, also has a longer break than his challenger as a non-slalom skier. Odermatt has been the big cash-in so far this winter, while Schwarz has shown the greatest enthusiasm and passion for collecting.
The victory in the Madonna di Campiglio slalom on Friday was his first of the season. And you definitely need the victories, said Schwarz. “You need the big points. Like Odi gets them in the giant and also in the speed. It’s really good that I’ve now won the slalom.” We always knew how important the slalom was if we had a chance against Odermatt, explained head coach Marko Pfeifer.
Schwarz also achieved three second places in 2023/24 – in the slalom in Gurgl and the giant slalom in Val d’Isere and Alta Badia – and was always in the top nine except once. The only negative outlier was 40th place on his Val Gardena debut in the first descent. Odermatt completed six races, but he won the giant slalom in Val d’Isere and both races in this discipline in Alta Badia and came third in a downhill and a super-G in Val Gardena.
Schwarz described the overall World Cup leadership as “naturally beautiful” and said he wanted to continue working like this and stay cool. But the victory has much more meaning at this time of year; it was the sixth for Schwarz in his career, the third in the slalom. “It’s scary that he wins the race today, that he hits like that,” said Pfeifer. He would have liked a place in the top five or top ten for his protégé. “You can see that he has self-confidence, it comes easily to him. We have to keep going step by step.”
Schwarz traveled home on Friday to spend Christmas with his family. On Christmas Day we head to Bormio for the speed competitions, followed by the technical races in Adelboden. If fatigue sets in with Schwarz, you have to be sensible and leave something out, said Pfeifer.
In the slalom discipline ranking, Schwarz leads ahead of Gurgl winner Manuel Feller, who came fifth on Friday and said of his teammate: “Great. Everything is going according to plan. It’s crazy that he is doing well in all disciplines. You can only take your hat off to that “I hope that things continue like this for him. But I would like to have him under control in the slalom,” said the Tyrolean Feller.
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