This slap did Odermatt good
Victory in the first men’s world championship speed race is likely to lead to the Nidwaldner. He is calm – also because of a moment of shock.
Sought after like no other skier at the World Championships: Marco Odermatt at the media event in Courchevel.
Photo: Jean-Christophe Bott (Keystone)
Suddenly there is a colorful hustle and bustle on the hotel terrace, cameramen stand on their feet, interviewers fight for the best position with their microphones. Here, high above Courchevel and right next to a ski slope, Swiss skiers have retreated to have peace and quiet during the World Cup. This afternoon it is suddenly broken through.
TV crews have come in droves to ask him how he is: Marco Odermatt, star of the ski world, poster boy, medal contender in giant slalom, super-G and downhill, hope for an entire skiing nation. Odermatt is used to the hype, “but that’s one of the bigger media crowds,” he says when he’s seated in the foyer and has his last round of questions of the day in front of him.
The man from Nidwalden spoke into dozens of microphones and smiled into dozens of cameras and cameras. At 25, he knows better than almost anyone how to master these situations with his own serenity. He knows that after this media marathon he will be able to concentrate on the main part of his work again, so he takes the time for the questions.
The tricky race with Kilde
The young man with the blond curls has run races in which he even amazed himself for once. In Cortina d’Ampezzo he won the first Super-G, also won the second Super-G. And that after this history: A week earlier, the apparently invulnerable Dominator of this winter a moment of shock experienced. After a wave at the end of the steep slope, he landed so hard on the Kitzbühel Streif, this terrifying spectacle piste, that he suffered a crushed meniscus and bruises in his left knee and had to miss two races.
He felt while driving that something “is not so good,” he says now. “But I didn’t want to swing away so that everyone could see that something was wrong.” So he drove to the finish before disappearing without a word and limping.
The incident was also a consequence of the race between him and Aleksander Kilde, who previously pushed themselves to even more daring rides in the speed disciplines in their fight for hundredths. “If I were to win three races with a two-second advantage, I certainly wouldn’t start the fourth race with that risk. But when I know that it’s usually tight, then I consciously take more risks,” says Odermatt. At the giant slalom in Adelboden, Odermatt already made an appearance at and above the limithardly any other driver would have finished the run. He also experienced a moment of shock in Wengen – a week later in Kitzbühel I got a slap on the knee. “Aleksander and I are already aware of the area in which we are moving,” says Odermatt. “But now we have become even more aware of how extremely willing we are to go to the limit to win.”
The mini break was good for the head
In Cortina d’Ampezzo, where the overall World Cup winner experiences his wonderful return to the World Cup, the Norwegian is eliminated. ‘I think it did us good to get a slap like that. I saw it in Cortina with my two wins, Aleksander in Kitzbühel with his triumph on Saturday: We don’t always have to risk everything to win. He did it with a normal, confident ride – and I also showed that it could also be normal.”
The realization comes at the right time, before a serious injury. The short break didn’t hurt him either, says Odermatt. “I was off the mark, that was good for my head. Of course I would have preferred it if it hadn’t been for the knee thing. But everything has a reason.” For the Swiss, it was the so-called shot across the bow.
So he took it easier than usual in preparation for the World Cup, only trained for two days in the weight room last week, did therapy for his knee, “I gave him time”. The closed season will be over by Thursday at the latest, if he and his knee are serious about it in the Super-G. Odermatt doesn’t want to deny that he has three medals in sight at this World Championships, his self-confidence is too high for that. “I don’t have to say what my goal is, that’s already clear because of the expectations alone,” says Odermatt. “But I’m also realistic, everything has to fit together, then I have three good chances. If it works: great!» And if not? “Then I won’t end my career right away.”
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