The race of the 25 - Men - Kranjska Gora

Last Giant-Slalom on Saturday and last Slalom on Sunday also for men.

It'll be a thriller weekend above all for Marcel Hirscher who's got to fight for the Overall standing, where he's seen his margin reducted to 29 points after Kvitfjiell's weekend (Svindal was 2nd in downhill and won the Super-G).
Hirscher leads the Slalom standing with 184 point over Neureuther, meaning Felix has very few chances to grab the Globe: he's got to win both slaloms and Hirscher has to do very very very bad, business should be closed already on sunday.
Hirscher is runner-up in Giant-Slalom standing, 105 point behind Ted Ligety, but again something very strange has to happen to see a twist.... but you never know.

All these men previously named have done a great work and showed great consistency, that was hardly seen in the past... there's been a great evolution of both physical and mental training in recent years.
Just think of what happened only last year to Hirscher and Neureuther in slalom they had 6 and 7 completed slaloms out of 11, while this season they've completed all the saloms so far.
Almost the same could be said for Ligety the biggest protestor about the introduction of the new skis with different radius of turn, but thank to a great work he ruled the season dictating the pace; and only from recent GSs (late of months) the rest of the field seems to have come closer to his level, although what Ligety shows in every run is something differen from what the others can do.
And then Svindal who's won the Super-G Globe winning 4 of 5 SGs and being 2nd place in one, biggest miss for him the Gold medal at the Championships where he's only come 3rd.

Away from the spot light and the shine of the Globes other are fighting to be at the finals in Lenzerheide (in yesterday's post I've explained how to be in).

Giant-Slalom
Ted Ligety is the World Champion while norvegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde is World Junior Champion, he's got only one start in World Cup, season opening in Solden, didn't qualify for run 2. He's Overall and Super-G leader in European Cup.

20	Leif Kristian	Haugen	NOR	80
21	Cyprien	Richard	FRA	77
22	Hannes	Reichelt	AUT	76
23	Florian	Eisath	ITA	73
24	Matts	Olsson	SWE	69
25	Didier	Defago	SUI	66
26	Mathieu	Faivre	FRA	64
27	Tim	Jitloff	USA	52
28	Roberto	Nani	ITA	48
29	Gauthier	De Tessieres	FRA	47
30	Victor	Muffat Jeandet	FRA	38
31	Andre	Myhrer	SWE	37

Huge risk for good old Didier Defago who's done his time and now is undermined by youngsters like frenchman Faivre.

Faivre has top 15 skills, although his ranking says differently. He's to build up his starting list, and good results are coming and helping him doing so: he was just out of the top 30 in the Staring List at the beginning of the season. Two points looks very easy for him to recover.

Also Jitloff is improving, although he isn't this young anymore. 17 points for him looks an hard task for him though.

If it's hard to think of a huge comeback from behind it's easy to think to a choke from the front: Haugen is an aggressive one, who takes many risks; Eisath although on this average level for the whole season seems more focused on European Cup; Reichel and Richard wheren't used to this placement and certainly aren't enjoyng the new skis

Slalom

Hirscher is World Champion, and his compatriot Manuel Feller is World Junior Champion, he took the start in several World Cup slaloms and even managed some placement (16th in Adelboden his best result).

18	Steve	Missillier	FRA	108
19	David	Chodounsky	USA	105
20	Markus	Larsson	SWE	95
21	Jean-Baptiste	Grange	FRA	92
22	Henrik	Kristoffersen	NOR	92
23	Markus	Vogel	SUI	82
24	Naoki	Yuasa	JPN	82
25	Cristian	Deville	ITA	81
26	Alexandr	Horoshilov	RUS	67
27	Wolfgang	Hoerl	AUT	60
28	Axel	Baeck	SWE	56
29	Leif Kristian	Haugen	NOR	53
30	Manuel	Feller	AUT	49
31	Mitja	Valencic	SLO	47

Some big name involved in this clash, like Deville who only last year was a top competitor, fighting for podiums and even the win and now is just borderline to make the finals.

14 points to defend from the raising russian Koroshilov should be enough but defensive runs aren't for Deville, who's an aggressive one, and so is also Yuasa. These two also have the common love for icy conditions, but it won't be so this weekend, another point against them.

Again more likely to see a big choke rather than a big comeback: Koroshilov doesn't look ready to make a big jump up to the top 15; Hoerl has had better times; Baeck has little lost his rails, she was a borderlin top 10 before this season; same for Valencic who'll be the home racer though.