Pinturault earns 30th career win

Alexis Pinturault edged Henrik Kristoffersen in a floodlit men’s World Cup parallel event on Friday for his 30th career win.

The Frenchman built a lead of 0.16 seconds over his Norwegian rival on the slightly faster blue course, before Kristoffersen shaved off only five-hundredths of his deficit in the deciding run.

The victory lifted Pinturault into outright 10th place on the alltime winners list in men’s World Cup history, overtaking former Austrian standout Stephan Eberharter. Next on the list is American skier Bode Miller with 33 wins.

“If you talk about the victory and the race today, it is something really great,” Pinturault said.

“It was pretty good, it was going so fast that you have no time to think about it. You have to focus on your race and on your runs.”

Erik Read of Canmore was 12th, while Trevor Philp of Calgary was 28th.

Pinturault has been the most successful active male skier since record eight-time overall champion Marcel Hirscher retired in 2019 after winning 67 races.

The result also made the Frenchman the first male skier to win races in six different Alpine disciplines, matching Mikaela Shiffrin’s record on the women’s circuit.

However, Pinturault played down the importance of that milestone, pointing out that the former city events and the current parallel events are regarded as two different disciplines, although they were “more or less the same” in his opinion.

“I am not here for the numbers, I am here to have fun, to attack,” he said. “And today was great.”