Marco Odermatt won the men's giant slalom at the 2023 World Championships in Courchevel, France, on 17 February. It was his second gold of the same championships. Five days earlier he had taken the downhill title.
Trailing after run one, then a clean second run
The L'Éclipse course was long, icy and variable, one of the season's most gruelling. On the first run Austria's Marco Schwarz skied the run of his life and led Odermatt by 0.48 seconds. The Swiss racer sat behind, with real work to do.
The second run turned the day. Odermatt held his nerve on the rutted, bumpy snow and skied a controlled, aggressive line. He crossed in a combined 2:34.08 and set the mark to beat.
Schwarz followed but faded, small errors at the top giving way to a bigger one near the finish. His teammate Loïc Meillard took silver, 0.32 back, and Schwarz held bronze, 0.40 behind, for a Swiss one-two.
Two golds in five days, a first double at one championships
The downhill gold on 12 February had been Odermatt's first World Championship title. The giant slalom made it two inside a week. He arrived as the Beijing 2022 Olympic champion in the discipline, unbeaten on the podium that World Cup season.
"It was another big fight today," Odermatt told reporters afterwards. "Rough conditions, you always have to push, but stay on your feet. It was not easy to focus, and have the energy for the final run."
The week in Courchevel-Meribel marked his arrival as a champion in more than one kind of race.
