Kilde dominates World Cup downhill in big win over Odermatt

By The Associated Press on January 14, 2023.

WENGEN, Switzerland (AP) – The dominant men’s downhill racer is Aleksander Aamodt Kilde – clearly.

Kilde won Switzerland’s marquee World Cup race Saturday by a big margin for his fourth win in six downhills this season.

“It’s flowing pretty well now, it’s really a lot of fun. I feel so happy skiing,” Kilde told Swiss broadcaster RTS.

That Kilde won with Swiss standout Marco Odermatt second was less of a surprise than the gap between them on a shortened version of the storied Lauberhorn course – 0.88 seconds.

“It’s super with the second place but the time was really too much,” said Odermatt, who shook his head on crossing the finish line.

The defending overall World Cup champion now has six career runner-up finishes in downhill but has never won.

Odermatt was the only racer within a second of Kilde, and Mattia Casse was 1.01 back in third.

Toronto’s James Crawford was the top Canadian in 29th.

In his last race at Wengen before retiring, three-time Lauberhorn winner Beat Feuz was never in contention 1.25 behind Kilde in fifth.

Olympic downhill champion Feuz will stop after the two downhills next weekend at Kitzbuehel, Austria, where he is a multiple winner on the mythic Streif slope.

Kilde also won Friday’s super-G, yet it was another strong day for Switzerland. Five Swiss racers placed in the top 10 after seven were top-15 finishers in super-G.

Kilde’s 19th career World Cup win was his 10th in downhill. His 100 race points extended the lead over Odermatt to in the season-long discipline standings to 119.

The Norwegian, who was the 2020 overall World Cup champion, is only slowly closing the gap on Odermatt’s lead for the giant crystal globe. Odermatt now leads by 340.

The 93rd edition of Switzerland’s signature winter sports event started lower down the mountain because of strong winds in the top section.

The longest course on the World Cup circuit at 4.3 kilometres instead was raced from the super-G start just above the steep Hundschopf jump.

It meant Kilde’s winning time Saturday of one minute, 43 seconds was almost five seconds quicker than Friday’s super-G.

Racers were still launched almost 40 metres off a jump and Odermatt crucially lost speed wobbling on his landing.

“The light was very, very bad. It was difficult to see the snow,” he said of the overcast conditions.

Racers slowed to about 75 kilometres per hour through the S-shaped section mid-race, but gained speed again to clock 145 in the fastest straight known as Hanneggschuss.

In the 2013 Lauberhorn race, a World Cup speed record of 162 was set by Johan Clarey of France. The course has since been curbed to control racers’ speed.

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