Kilde dominates the World Cup downhill with a big win over Odermatt
The dominating men’s downhill racer is Aleksander Aamodt Kilde – quite clearly.
Kilde won Switzerland’s marquee World Cup race on Saturday by a wide margin for his fourth win in six downhills this season.
“It’s going pretty well now, it’s really a lot of fun. I feel so happy skiing,” Kilde told Swiss broadcaster RTS.
Kilde winning with Swiss leader Marco Odermatt second was less surprising than the gap between them on a shortened version of the famous Lauberhorn course – 0.88 seconds.
“It’s great with second place, but the time was really too much,” said Odermatt, who shook his head when crossing the finish line. The reigning overall World Cup winner has finished second in the downhill six times in his career, but has never won.
Odermatt was the only racer within a second of Kilde and Mattia Casse was third, 1.01s back. The 32-year-old Italian achieved a career-best third place finish last month in Val Gardena, Italy, which Kilde also won.
In his last race in Wengen before retiring, three-time Lauberhorn winner Beat Feuz was never in contention for fifth place, 1.25s behind Kilde. Downhill Olympic champion Feuz will be making a stop in Kitzbühel, Austria, after the two downhill runs next weekend, where he is a multiple winner on the Streif, which is mythical in ski history.
Kilde also won the Super-G race on Friday, but it was another strong day for Switzerland. Five Swiss racers placed in the top 10 – including a surprise run by Wengen’s downhill debutant Alexis Monney – after seven were top 15 finishers in Super-G.
The Norwegian star’s 19th World Cup win was his 10th in downhill. With 100 race points, he extended his lead over Odermatt to 119 in the discipline season ranking.
Kilde, the overall World Cup winner of 2020, is only slowly closing in on Odermatt’s lead around the giant crystal ball. Odermatt leads with 340.
It’s a friends’ rivalry that will carry on for the remainder of the season, including next month’s biannual World Cups in the French resorts of Courchevel and Meribel.
“We’re great competitors, but we’re also great friends,” Kilde said. “It’s important to look at the sport in a humble and respectful way.”
The 93rd edition of the Alpine nation’s winter sports event started further down the mountain due to strong winds in the upper part.
Instead, the longest stretch of the World Cup course, at 4.3 kilometers, was run from the Super-G start just above the steep Hundschopf-Schanze. Kilde’s winning time on Saturday was 1 minute, 43 seconds, almost five seconds shorter than Friday’s Super-G.
The racers were still launched almost 40 meters (yards) from the hill and Odermatt lost crucial speed on his landing when he wobbled.
“The light was very, very bad. It was difficult to see the snow,” he said of the overcast conditions.
The racers were slowed to around 75 km/h (47 mph) in the middle of the race by the S-shaped section and regained speed to finish 145 km/h (90 mph) on the fastest straight known as the Hanneggschuss ) to reach.
At the 2013 Lauberhorn race, Frenchman Johan Clarey set a World Cup speed record of 162 km/h (100.6 mph). The course has since been braked to control the speed of the racers.
Odermatt enjoyed a shorter race Saturday with intense days at the most anticipated and lucrative venue of the season.
“It’s a little less for the legs,” he admitted. “If you look forward to the next few weeks, they will be tough and Kitzbühel is known to be one of my favourites.”
Odermatt and Kilde do without a slalom Sunday, which completes the Wengen program.
___
More AP Skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/skiing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports