SOLDEU, Andorra — Marco Odermatt underscored his dominance in men’s ski racing on Saturday by breaking the 23-year-old men’s record for most World Cup points in a season.
The standout Swiss won his final race of the season, the giant slalom in the World Cup final, by a whopping 2.11 seconds over second-placed Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen.
The win took Odermatt’s total to 2,042 points and surpassed the previous mark of 2,000 set by Austrian great Hermann Maier in the 1999–2000 season.
“Sorry, Hermann,” Odermatt joked in a post-race interview with Austrian TV, adding that the record meant “a lot” to him.
“The last few days I always said: no no, not that important, just numbers,” Odermatt said. “But as I felt today, with the pressure on again, I knew it was more important than I said. I’m very happy it worked out.”
Last week, Maier wrote on his website that he hoped Odermatt would overtake him.
“In my eyes, Marco hasn’t even reached his zenith and can still improve, especially downhill,” Maier said.
Theoretically, Odermatt has a chance to add even more points in Sunday’s season-ending slalom, but he’s never raced the event at World Cup level.
The record for the general classification, between men and women, is held by the remarkable Slovenian Tina Maze, who accumulated 2,414 points when she won the title of the general classification for women in 2013.
Odermatt, who is the Olympic champion, tied another best mark with his 13th victory of the season. No male skier has ever won more races in a single campaign, and only Maier, Ingemar Stenmark and Marcel Hirscher have achieved the feat in the past.
The overall single-season win record is held by Mikaela Shiffrin, who won 17 times en route to the 2018-19 women’s title.
Odermatt had already successfully defended his overall title and won the super-G and giant slalom globes.
“I was looking forward to the finals with no pressure, but today I felt that pressure again,” he said. “Today was not easy. I was nervous again because of those damn 2,000 points. Now with another win, more than two seconds ahead, I don’t know what to say.”
On Saturday, the Swiss posted the second-fastest time in his final run building on his clear lead from the first run, when he was 1.09 seconds quicker than Alexis Pinturault. The French skier fell to eighth place.
Kristoffersen only placed eighth after the opening run before moving up to second. Marco Schwarz of Austria was 2.29 behind in third.