FILE PHOTO: Alpine Skiing – FIS Ski World Cup – Men’s Downhill – Val Gardena, Italy – December 18, 2021 Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde in action during the men’s downhill REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo
December 29, 2021
BORMIO, Italy (Reuters) – Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde made it three World Cup super-G wins in a row with an imperious display in Bormio on Wednesday.
The 29-year-old won a super-G and a downhill at Beaver Creek, Colorado at the start of December before taking another victory at Val Gardena two weeks ago.
Kilde became the first man to win three successive super-Gs since December 2016 with a time of 1:27.95 in Bormio, well clear of the chasing pack, with a little over a month to go until the Beijing Winter Olympics start on Feb. 4.
“My plan today was to ski beyond the limit,” Kilde told Eurosport. “I wanted to ski well, but where I could push beyond the limit, that’s what I wanted to do.
“I just brought good skiing today, where others maybe lost a bit. I just hit the right spots. Everything is possible if I can deliver like today.”
Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt, overall leader in the World Cup standings, looked primed to earn his third super-G win this year but errors late in his run to cost him as he came eighth.
Austrian Raphael Haaser secured a surprise second spot, his first World Cup podium, 0.72 seconds behind Kilde, with his performance likely to earn selection for the Winter Olympics.
Compatriot Vincent Kriechmayr made it eight World Cup super-G top-five finishes in a row by completing the podium, 0.85 seconds off Kilde.
Kilde’s win in Bormio took him above Matthias Mayer into second place in the overall World Cup standings, 276 points behind leader Odermatt.
Home favourite Dominik Paris claimed a record sixth World Cup downhill victory at Bormio in his native Italy on Tuesday but could not add a super-G win as he finished down in 24th.
Racing continues on the Stelvio, which will host all of the men’s alpine ski races at the 2026 Winter Olympics, on Thursday in Bormio with another super-G event.
(Reporting by Peter Hall; Editing by Ken Ferris)
Source: One America News Network
