Right at the start of the season, Austria's slalom aces and former dominator Marcel Hirscher wanted to make a statement in Levi. But the plan was a complete failure. In the end, Feller, Hirscher & Co. have to watch their rivals celebrate.
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- Frenchman Clément Noël wins the first slalom of the winter ahead of Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen and Switzerland's Loic Meillard.
- Far from a triumph in Levi were the Austrians, who were licking their wounds afterwards. Marcel Hirscher didn't have the best of luck on the icy slope either.
Clément Noël mastered the technically demanding "Levi Black" slope best on Sunday. The Frenchman beat second-placed Henrik Kristoffersen by 80 tenths. The Norwegian, for his part, maintained a lead of 15 hundredths over Switzerland's Loic Meillard.
The Austrians didn't get going at all in the far north - one year after they made a brilliant start to the slalom season with a triple victory in front of their home crowd in Gurgl in the Ötztal. The best classified representative of Ski Austria was Adrian Pertl in 15th place - 2.2 seconds behind. Manuel Feller, who had won the World Cup premiere in Gurgl ahead of Marco Schwarz and Michael Matt and ultimately also the discipline classification, was eliminated in the second run after finishing in 15th place.
The tabloid newspaper "Krone" even described the performance as a "slap in the face for the Austrians". In fact, the ÖSV team hasn't been this bad since Madonna in December 2021.
Feller and Hirscher in search of causes
Last year's discipline winner Feller struggled with the conditions in Levi in the ORF interview: "It was very difficult for me today, I couldn't get a good turn together."
Marcel Hirscher, who has been competing for the Netherlands since his comeback, fared even worse. The eight-time overall World Cup winner didn't get up to speed at all on the icy slope and clearly missed out on the second run in 46th place - 2.59 seconds behind Noel.
It was still okay in the first few gates, "but then it quickly degenerated into one of the worst slalom runs of my life," said the 35-year-old in the ORF interview.
Hirscher admitted that he couldn't cope with the conditions. "It really was a slog and a far cry from what I had hoped for". He felt like a passenger today. "It was a fight for survival and actually almost a pain in the ass." The veteran also noted that he had also made the wrong choice of equipment. His conclusion: "After such a long time in the World Cup, it was clear that there would be days when not everything would fit."
The 67-time World Cup winner practises gallows humor. When asked what he will remember, Hirscher replies: "Beautiful days, the reindeer and the far north - we'll take with us to Austria the fact that we were way off the mark on the ice."
