Swiss Marco Odermatt was again crowned the world’s best all-around Alpine skier on Saturday, while American River Radamus had a breakthrough he’s been waiting years for.
In Palisades Tahoe, California, Odermatt earned a 10th consecutive World Cup giant slalom win dating to last season and clinched this season’s overall title historically early with a month still left on the schedule.
Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen was second, 12 hundredths behind, combining times from two runs.
Radamus was third, 1.37 seconds behind, to become at 26 the youngest U.S. man to make an Alpine World Cup podium in nearly 10 years.
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“It’s been a long time coming,” Radamus, a Youth Olympic gold medalist and world junior champion who made his World Cup debut in 2017 at age 19, said on NBC Sports. “I’ve wanted to feel what this moment feels like for so long. I’ve just kept working and working and working. Sometimes, I thought it’d never come.”
Radamus, from the same Colorado hometown as Mikaela Shiffrin, earned his first World Cup podium after seven previous individual top-10 finishes.
He is the youngest U.S. man to make an Alpine World Cup podium since Travis Ganong in February 2014.
Radamus was fourth in the GS at the 2022 Olympics and fourth in the combined at the 2023 World Championships, where he earned gold in the team event.
He won three gold medals at the 2016 Youth Olympics and two golds at the 2019 World Junior Championships.
Odermatt, who won four individual golds at the 2018 Junior Worlds, is having one of the greatest seasons in the sport’s history.
The 26-year-old earned a third consecutive overall title, the biggest annual prize in ski racing, adding up results from all disciplines.
He mathematically clinched the title Saturday with his 11th win of the season coupled with his closest pursuer, Manuel Feller of Austria, finishing eighth. It was a nice cap to a week that also included the premiere of a commercial with countryman Roger Federer.
Odermatt now leads the overall standings by 1,001 points with 10 races left in the 38-race campaign. A race winner receives 100 points on a descending scale through one point for 30th place.
None of the other recent historic seasons — Austrian Hermann Maier in 2000 and 2001, Slovenian Tina Maze in 2013, Shiffrin in 2019 and 2023, even Odermatt last year — had the overall title clinched with 10 races still to go.
The Alpine World Cup dates back to 1967, when Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy won 12 of the 17 men’s races in that first year.
Odermatt built his massive lead this year as the world’s top-ranked man in the downhill, GS and super-G. He does not race the slalom.
The standings have also been impacted by injuries.
Austrian Marco Schwarz was leading the overall standings by eight points over Odermatt when he had a season-ending downhill race crash Dec. 28.
Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who ranked second in the overall behind Odermatt the previous two years, had a season-ending downhill race crash Jan. 13. At the time, Kilde was the closest pursuer to Odermatt, 476 points behind.
Odermatt is the fifth man to win three consecutive overall titles after Italian Gustav Thoni, Swede Ingemar Stenmark, American Phil Mahre and Austrian Marcel Hirscher.
He is likely to break the men’s overall margin of victory record of 743 points set by Maier in 2001. The margin of victory record for men or women is also in play — 1,313 points by Maze in 2013.
