Courchevel (France) (AFP) - Manuel Feller raised hopes of bagging Austria's first gold medal of the World Ski Championships in Courchevel by topping the first run of the men's slalom on Sunday.
Feller, a world slalom silver medallist in St Moritz in 2017, clocked 46.93 seconds down L'Eclipse piste in sunny, warm conditions.
Greece's AJ Ginnis and Norway's Lucas Braathen sat in joint second, at 0.13sec.
Either of those racers winning would be a massive surprise, Greece never having won a world alpine ski championship and 22-year-old Braathen, a five-time winner on the World Cup circuit, having undergone an emergency appendectomy just three weeks ago.
In Ginnis, born to a Greek father and American mother, Greece have unearthed a real talent, albeit one moulded in US colours.
Athens born, Ginnis moved to the US at the age of 15 and raced for his adopted country before switching allegiance.
His career, improbably started on the snowy slopes of Mount Parnassus in central Greece, has been massively disrupted by injury, not least six knee operations.
The most recent operation deprived him representing the country of his birth at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
"It was a really fun, obviously a really tight race," said Ginnis after the first leg in Courchevel.
"I thought I blew it up there, but then had a great middle and bottom section and I'm happy to be in the race to fight for the medals for sure.
"Hopefully it works out.Two weeks ago it was an awesome high having a first World Cup podium for Greece in wintersports" in the slalom in the neighbouring French resort of Chamonix.
"A medal would be unbelievable, but I'm not thinking about that right now, I'm just focusing on the second run and you better bet I'm going to give it all I've got."
Pray to the Greek gods
When asked whether he'd prayed to the Greek gods in the morning, Ginnis joked: "All 12 of them, yes!"
While the ski lifts in Mount Parnassos are actually named after the gods, Ginnis added: "It's a great place, I'm happy to go back there, Greek nationals at the end of March."
Ginnis also insisted he was not bitter after being cut from the US slalom team in 2018 when he was 23.
"All credit to them (US team), they did develop me.I think for me it was a will of wanting to ski for my home country because I did grow up and then for them I was a really injured athlete," he said.
"The US team is a big team that can't cater to an athlete who hasn't performed the way I needed catering to, so I don't blame them at all for cutting the team when they did.
"It sure made things harder for me, but hey, everything happens for a reason, I have a World Cup podium under my belt, sitting second, so I'm not complaining."
After six surgeries including three ACLs, one MCL and "a bunch of meniscus and cartilage damage", Ginnis skis with two knee braces."It works!I’m truly very lucky to have the support I do and to be able to do this."
A host of race favourites followed in the timings, with the top 19 within one second of Feller.
Braathen's teammate Sebastien Foss-Solevaag, the reigning world champion, sat fifth (+0.35) and Olympic champion Clement Noel in eighth (+0.64).
"I skied carefully up top," said Noel."I made a big mistake that cost me four-hundredths of a second.
"If I hadn't done that it would really have put me in the mix so I'm a little disappointed.
"In order for me to go looking for a podium finish I'm going to have to lay down a big second leg."
Besides Feller, Austrian hopes lay with Fabio Gstrein, in seventh, and Marco Schwarz, the latter in ninth as he bids for a third medal after silver in the alpine combined and bronze in the giant slalom.
