Double Swiss delight as Odermatt, Gut-Behrami claim super-G globes

There was double Swiss super-G delight at the World Cup finals in Saalbach on Friday as both Marco Odermatt and Lara Gut-Behrami finished atop the speed discipline's standings.

Odermatt had come to the Austrian resort confirmed of the big globe for a third time after having topped the overall standings, while Gut-Behrami claimed her second on Sunday.

Odermatt was up against Austrian speed rival Vincent Kriechmayr in the super-G standings, and the Swiss racer finished fifth down the Ulli Maier piste.

The globe went his way as Kriechmayr came in sixth, 0.08sec off Odermatt's pace.

"Today I still had to fight for it," Odermatt said. "It was the first time I had to fight for the globe in the last race, we all know what can happen.

After bagging the overall, super-G and giant slalom globes, Odermatt will now try to mirror Austrian Hermann Maier's feat from 23 years ago of also bagging the downhill globe.

Odermatt is currently 42 points ahead of France's Cyprien Sarrazin in those standings, with 100pts on offer for victory and a decreasing points value for lesser positions.

"I hope it will be a fair race (on Sunday), not with one of us having bib 15 and the other one 6, it is a big difference and it would be sad to make the medal from the bib draws," said Odermatt, as the sunny conditions in Saalbach made it harder for racers down the list to find the speed of those first out of the start hut.

The super-G race itself went the way of Odermatt's teammate Stefan Rogentin, whose maiden World Cup win came in 1min 13.36sec.

Rogentin led home a Swiss podium sweep with Loic Meillard and Arnaud Boisset claiming second and third places.

World champion James Crawford of Canada could only finish 14th.

 Gut-Behrami treble 

 Earlier in the day, Ester Ledecka, the Czech snowboarder turned speedster, won the women's super-G.

Ledecka, who famously won the super-G alpine skiing gold and the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, clocked 1:15.94 for victory in brilliant sunshine.

It was the multi-talented 28-year-old's fourth victory on the World Cup circuit.

Italy's Federica Brignone came in second, at 0.28sec, while Norway's Kajsa Vickhoff Lie rounded out the podium, a further two-hundredths of a second adrift.

Gut-Behrami finished seventh, a position that confirmed her as World Cup super-G winner in the discipline standings, 30 points ahead of Brignone.

"Of course I am super happy with the result, winning the globe was what I wanted," said Gut-Behrami.

"This is one of the best races I have done in these conditions. It's pretty soft and pretty straight – not my favourite thing. I made a few mistakes on top but altogether it was a pretty solid run."

Gut-Behrami joins American Lindsey Vonn and Germany's Katja Seizinger as a five-time super-G World Cup champion and emulates one of her childhood idols, Vreni Schneider, who was the last Swiss woman to win three globes in a season, a feat she achieved back in 1994/95.

The 32-year-old Swiss skier had claimed her second overall title on Sunday despite only finishing 10th in the season-closing giant slalom.

With that result the Olympic super-G gold medallist took an unassailable lead into the final two races of the World Cup season -- the super-G and Saturday's downhill -- as well as claiming her first giant slalom title.

Gut-Behrami heads into the downhill atop the discipline standings, 19pts ahead of the injured Italian Soffia Goggia, and locked in a straight battle for a fourth globe of the season with the Austrian pair of Stephanie Venier and Cornelia Huetter, and Swiss teammate Jamsine Flury.

"I am happy that tomorrow is going to be a pretty challenging race similar to the race we had today," said Gut-Behrami, who will emulate Vonn, Mikael Shiffrin and Tina Maze should she secure a fourth globe.

The men wrap up the finals with their own downhill on Sunday.