HEAD premiere: First double victory in the men's Slalom

The World Cup weekend in Val d'Isere finished with a premiere: For the first time the HEAD World Cup Rebels celebrated a double victory in the men's Slalom with Alexis Pinturault and Andre Myhrer. Not only that, but in the women's Parallel Slalom in St. Moritz two HEAD athletes Anna Swenn Larsson and Franziska Gritsch finished on the podium as well.

Alexis Pinturault put in a remarkable performance at the Slalom in Val d'Isere. The Frenchman started the race with bib number one and nailed the fastest time on the first run. Despite difficult conditions on the second run, the 28-year-old kept his cool to win his home race 1.44 seconds ahead of his HEAD team-mate Andre Myhrer from Sweden.

"I was not sure about winning, so I was extremely surprised. I am very pleased, especially because it was here in France. I also had very good equipment," said Alexis Pinturault at the finish. He has now taken over the lead in the overall World Cup ranking. The 22-year-old Bulgarian Albert Popov finished twelfth in the Slalom. The Giant Slalom on Saturday was cancelled because of poor weather conditions.

Salzgeber: "This is totally awesome"

"For us this is a world first. We have never had a double victory in a men's Slalom before. This is totally awesome," says a delighted Rainer Salzgeber, HEAD Racing Director. "The way Alexis did it was really smooth. And with relatively little training. Since Levi he has not skied more than seven Slalom runs. Andre already decided before the season that this will be his last. That is why he is so focussed. Physically he is at a super level. We have changed some details on his equipment that are really working for him. That was already clear to me during our training sessions."

First World Cup podium finish for Franziska Gritsch

The HEAD Team also had reason to celebrate in the Women's events. Anna Swenn Larsson just missed her first World Cup victory by two hundredths of a second in the Parallel Slalom in St. Moritz. Behind the Swede, Franziska Gritsch from Austria bagged her first podium finish in a World Cup race in third place. Lena Dürr from Germany was 15th.

Dedicated service man project pays off

"It's a shame that Anna missed her first World Cup victory by only two hundredths of a second," said Rainer Salzgeber. "Franziska's third place is a dream. At the start of this season we launched a project with Rudi Berger as the dedicated service man for Bernadette Schild and Franziska Gritsch. Unfortunately Schild was injured, but we look after our young athletes and they have confidence in us. Rudi Berger does his job extremely well and as this result demonstrates, we made the right investment. It has really paid off."

Strong team performance in the women's Super-G

The HEAD World Cup Rebels also proved to be a strong team in the Super-G on Saturday. With Lara Gut-Behrami from Switzerland in fifth place as well as Nina Ortlieb from Austria, Corinne Suter from Switzerland and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie from Norway all with identical times in sixth place, four athletes from the HEAD Team finished among the top 8. In the top 15 Wendy Holdener from Switzerland was twelfth and Elena Curtoni from Italy was 15th.