(Reuters) – France’s Alexis Pinturault was set to celebrate his 30th birthday with the World Cup Alpine skiing giant slalom and overall titles on Saturday.
The most successful French skier in World Cup history was leading after the first leg of the season’s final giant slalom, on a course set by his coach in the Swiss resort of Lenzerheide.
Wearing bib number one, he completed his run in one minute 01.19 seconds. Closest rival Marco Odermatt of Switzerland was 1.66 seconds slower down the Silvano Beltrametti piste and 10th equal.
Odermatt leads Pinturault by 25 points in the giant slalom standings, while the Frenchman is 31 points ahead overall with only the slalom remaining, and a maximum 100 points, on Sunday after Saturday’s race.
Odermatt is not expected to compete in the slalom.
Pinturault would be the first French overall World Cup champion since Luc Alphand in 1997 and first to take the giant slalom title since Frederic Covili in 2002.
Odermatt’s hopes of taking the overall title on home snow had receded already after the downhill and super-G races were cancelled earlier in the week due to bad weather.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
