The Courchevel skier won his second combined world title on Tuesday after that obtained in Are in 2019. This is the first medal for the French team in these home championships.
His day of glory. At the end of the picturesque village of Le Praz, and at the foot of the sublime Eclipse, Alexis Pinturault exploded with joy. After an already exceptional super-G at the end of the morning, the Frenchman held on in the slalom and was crowned combined world champion on Tuesday, February 7.
He thus won his second world title in “his” specialty, more than enough to ignite the thousand supporters present around the finish area, who had come to encourage “the local child”. The Frenchman resisted the return of the defending champion, Marco Schwarz (2nd, +0”10), the only one to have made the Courchevel skier tremble until a fault in the last banana of the course. Too many mistakes.
“Alexis [Pinturault] is one of the greatest skiers of all time and when he sends his best ski, it is the most beautiful to see sliding“, admitted this morning Johannes Strolz, Olympic champion in the combined in 2022. A revealing tribute to the talent of the immense champion that is Alexis Pinturault.
Tuesday, in a fiery atmosphere, the men with 34 World Cup victories set the record straight. Those which had disturbed him for so long, and which had prevented him, since his last victory on the circuit at Lenzerheide on March 20, 2021, from playing with the best. The story is so well written that he needed a new masterpiece here at home in Courchevel. Nowhere else.
A decisive super-G
This second planetary title on the combined (after Are in Sweden in 2019), Alexis Pinturault went to get it on the super-G. If he managed to raise his arms at the bottom of the Mur des Braves, the tough section of the Eclipse added for the event, it is above all because the Savoyard had delivered, at the end of the morning, a score of great beauty. . By winning the first round of speed in front of the big names in the discipline (Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Vincent Kriechmayr or Marco Odermatt), the “Beast” of Moûtiers has paid the luxury of leaving in first position in the starting gate at the moment of the slalom, second part of the combined event.
When he set off at 2:30 p.m. on this icy and shaded slope from start to finish, Alexis Pinturault seemed hesitant at first, borrowed. The pressure linked to this particular context? Because during the 45 seconds of his slalom, Le Praz was ablaze like never before, even more when the signals showed red on the last two intermediates, thus giving the impression of climbing on the track to help his colt slam the famous stakes. tight.
But again, history was written. At the bottom of the course, and after a last banana placed less than ten meters from the line, the child from Courchevel has overcome all his past doubts. A final jerk, two stakes, and here is the child who has become Alexis Pinturault again. Quite simply.
