(Los Angeles) The Swiss Marco Odermatt set the fastest time in the first round of the Palisades Tahoe giant, counting for the Alpine Skiing World Cup, played on Saturday in California.
Odermatt, crowned world champion in the discipline eight days ago in Courchevel and leader of the general classification of the World Cup, is ahead of the Frenchman Alexis Pinturault by 25/100 and the Norwegian Rasmus Windingstad by 29/100.
But nothing is done since the first five skiers at the end of this first run stand in 40/100.
The Swiss Loïc Meillard, recent silver medalist at the Worlds, is 69/100 behind while the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, runner-up to Odermatt in the general classification and specialist in speed events, is already relegated to more than a second (1 sec 14/100).
The start of the second leg is scheduled for 10:45 p.m. French (1:45 p.m. local). The organizers had to delay the start of the event by an hour due to heavy snowfall in recent days.
The Palisades Tahoe stage, the new name of the Squaw Valley winter sports resort which hosted the 1960 Olympics, will end on Sunday with a slalom.