Austrian skier Raphael Haaser wins gold in men’s giant slalom at the Alpine world championships

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SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (AP) — Austrian skier Raphael Haaser ended the Swiss dominance in the men’s events at the Alpine world championships by winning the giant slalom on Friday.

Haaser improved from fifth place in the opening run as the leading racers faltered in the second, and he finished ahead of three Swiss rivals.

“Just crazy, super,” said Haaser, who was 0.61 off the lead after the first run. “I told myself, I have nothing to lose.”

The Austrian skier beat silver medalist Thomas Tumler by 0.23 seconds while Loic Meillard was 0.51 behind and took bronze.

Defending champion Marco Odermatt missed a medal by seven-hundredths in fourth.

Erik Read of Calgary finished 22nd, 2.36 seconds back of Haaser.

The Canadian posted the second-fastest time in the second run.

“It’s just such an unbelievable day. Really happy with this race,” said Haaser, whose best result in a World Cup GS is seventh. “I think I was capable to ski in the top 10 permanently, but stepping on top of the podium, didn’t expect that.”

Haaser won silver in the super-G last week, in a race won by Odermatt. His gold is the third medal for the men’s team of host nation Austria after Vincent Kriechmayr placed second in the downhill.

On the women’s side, Austria also has three medals including one in gold, from Stephanie Venier in super-G. In that race, Haaser’s sister Ricarda crashed and suffered a season-ending knee injury.

Haaser himself returned from a six-week layoff for a knee issue only two weeks before the worlds.

“The worlds have always been my goal, I knew I would be able to make it here,” he said. “The only question was whether I could do a World Cup race before and qualify for the team.”

First-run leader Timon Haugan of Norway had a big mistake early in his second run and finished a full second behind in seventh.

“I felt like I’d lost everything anyway so I just tried to go for it in the middle section. It was still possible,” Haugan said. “I was very nervous, I had never been in this position, leading a GS race, so that was new for me.”

Meillard and Odermatt stood second and third after the first run, but both lost a place after making too many mistakes on a second-run course set by Helmut Krug, an Austrian coach working for the Swiss team.

“The first run I was pretty happy with my skiing. I know it was not the limit,” Odermatt said. “In the second run I really tried to push, I did a huge mistake before the flat and you lose too much speed.”

Odermatt, who is the Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Cup champion in GS, added that “even with a perfect tun it would have been very tight to beat Raphael today. He must have been amazing.”

The Swiss team had won all three previous men’s events.

Meillard paired with Franjo von Allmen to win the team combined event Wednesday, and Von Allmen took the downhill three days earlier.

Slipper crews had been working through the night to get fresh snow off the course, and snowfall during the first run caused flat light.

Skies cleared and the sun peaked through the clouds during the second run.

The next event at the worlds is the women’s slalom on Saturday.

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing