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Travis Ganong grew to become the primary U.S. male Alpine skier to mathematically clinch an Olympic spot, due to a third-place World Cup super-G end two months in the past.
Ganong completed nineteenth in Thursday’s super-G in Wengen, Switzerland, received by budding 24-year-old Swiss Marco Odermatt, the world’s high male skier this season.
It was the final super-G in the course of the Olympic qualifying interval that ends after this weekend’s races. Ganong is the lone American man with a World Cup super-G podium this season, so he might be on the Olympic crew anticipated to be introduced subsequent week.
ALPINE SKIING WORLD CUP: Full Results | Broadcast Schedule
The U.S. at the moment has six complete Olympic males’s Alpine snowboarding quota spots to unfold throughout 5 particular person occasions, however may acquire extra spots.
Bryce Bennett, the opposite American to make a podium this season (a Dec. 18 downhill win), and Ryan Cochran-Siegle are all however set to affix Ganong within the pace occasions in Beijing. They may seemingly clinch after Friday and Saturday’s downhill races. River Radamus is the U.S.’ high big slalom skier and in addition anticipated to be on the crew.
Ganong, 33, is headed to a second Olympics.
In 2014, the California native was the promising rookie on the boys’s crew. Ganong completed fifth within the Sochi Olympic downhill, bettering all of his earlier World Cup outcomes.
He adopted that along with his maiden podium within the first World Cup race after these Olympics. The following season, Ganong earned his first World Cup victory, then took silver within the 2015 World Championships downhill in Beaver Creek.
However Ganong tore an ACL in a downhill crash in Bormio, Italy on Dec. 28, 2017, ruling him out of the 2018 Olympics and ending his season.
The following yr, Ganong crashed once more in Bormio, this time a coaching run, injured his knee and sat out that week’s races.
However Ganong got here again. On Dec. 3 in Beaver Creek, Colorado, he made his first podium because the 2017 crash and first World Cup podium ever in super-G. He’s the highest-ranked American man within the occasion at No. 8 on the earth.
The Olympic super-G medal favorites are Austrians Matthias Mayer (defending gold medalist) and Vincent Kriechmayr (world champion), Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Odermatt.
Beforehand, Mikaela Shiffrin, Breezy Johnson, Paula Moltzan and Nina O’Brien clinched spots on the U.S. Olympic Alpine snowboarding crew.
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Travis Ganong is first U.S. male Alpine skier to clinch Olympic spot initially appeared on NBCSports.com
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