14th to first. Paco Rassat won the men’s slalom in Gurgl on Saturday in 1:44.55, 0.07 seconds ahead of Armand Marchant and 0.09 ahead of Atle Lie McGrath. It was the 27-year-old Frenchman’s first World Cup win and his first World Cup podium. Marchant’s second place is the first World Cup podium by a Belgian alpine skier.
| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time / Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paco RassatFRA | FRA | 1:44.55 |
| 2 | Armand MarchantBEL | BEL | +0.07 |
| 3 | Atle Lie McGrathNOR | NOR | +0.09 |
| 4 | Timon HauganNOR | NOR | +0.29 |
| 5 | Tanguy NefSUI | SUI | +0.65 |
Where it was won: the second run, in the flat light
McGrath led the first run. Rassat was 14th, 0.85 back. In a slalom that is a top-ten finish, not a win, unless the light goes. It went: visibility deteriorated through the afternoon and undid several of the skiers who started late, which in a second run means the fastest men from run one.
Rassat’s answer was to stop reading the snow and ski the rhythm. He said he tried to go as fast as possible and only knew what had happened when he saw the green light. Marchant, from 15 places further up the order, came 0.07 short. McGrath, who had the lead to protect, lost 0.09 of it.
Belgium
The site’s archive, which holds every World Cup podium back to 1966/67, has exactly one Belgian entry: Marchant, 22 November 2025, Gurgl, second. His previous best World Cup result was fifth, in Zagreb in 2020. His own summary of the problem: he comes from a small country with no mountains.
Out
- Eduard Hallberg, third in Levi a week earlier, spun out in run two.
- Loïc Meillard, the reigning slalom world champion, did not finish.
- Henrik Kristoffersen and Clément Noël tied for 12th; Noël’s first run was poor.
Numbers
- 0.07: the winning margin, and the gap between a first French win and a first Belgian win.
- 0.85: Rassat’s first-run deficit.
- 10: World Cup races before his first win, on the FIS count.
- 7: different winners in the eleven men’s slaloms this season. This was the second of them.
Rassat won again in Adelboden in January. The men’s slalom was the most open discipline of the winter, and Gurgl was the race that said so.