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| - Mathieu Faivre followed his world title in the giant slalom by dominating in Bansko on Sunday to take his second career World Cup victory. The Frenchman finished with a combined time of two minutes 25.29 seconds, 0.75sec ahead of Marco Odermatt of Switzerland with another Frenchman Alexis Pinturault 0.81 behind the winner in third. Faivre's only previous World Cup victory came in Val d'Isere in 2016 but he followed his golds in the giant slalom and parallel in Cortina d'Ampezzo this month with an emphatic win in Bulgaria. After only two podiums in 28 races between December 2018 and January 2021, Faivre has four in four races in the last two weeks. "It confirms that I am in good shape and that I feel very good on my skis," he said. "It confirms my good state of mind at the moment, I am very happy with my day today. Four podiums in four races, if I had been told that at the beginning of the season I wouldn't have believed it." Faivre was fastest in the first run, 0.42 seconds ahead of Swiss skier Loic Meillard with Pinturault, who leads both the giant slalom and overall standings, third. Faivre flowed down the second run to claim victory as Odermatt, who is second in the overall standings, jumped from sixth to edge Pinturault out of second place. With two giant slaloms left, Pinturault leads Odermatt, who overtook Saturday's winner Filip Zubcic, by 25 points and, with nine total races to go, the Frenchman has a 210-point advantage. Zubcic, a Croatian, could only finish 14th. rg/dif/pb/nr/jc
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