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Odermatt “risked everything” to win men’s giant slalom gold in Beijing

Sports Desk, Feb 13 (EFE).- Marco Odermatt on Sunday said he “risked everything” on the second run, on his way to claim the men’s giant slalom gold medal at Beijing Games despite challenging weather conditions.

The Swiss beat Slovenia’s Zan Kranjec and Mathieu Faivre of France respectively to clinch his maiden Olympic medal.

“I really risked everything in the second run because I wanted not just the medal, I wanted the gold medal,” the 24-year-old said afterwards. ”It’s difficult because you can lose everything but today it paid off.”

“It was a hard day, with the conditions, with such a long wait between the two runs,” Odermatt said of the race that saw the second and decisive run postponed for 75 minutes.

Only 54 out of 89 contestants made it to the end of the first run and 47 managed to finish the race.

“It was more than five hours for me, it was such a long time to re-think everything and it was hard to stay focused.

“I tried to sleep some minutes in between. I actually never dreamt about it but now it still feels like a dream,” he added. EFE

arh/ta/ch

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