Kilde gets back at Odermatt to grab gold in World Cup downhill

Graham Dunbar · The Associated Press

· Posted: Jan 14, 2022 10:02 AM EST | Last Updated: January 14, 2022

The rivalry betwixt Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Marco Odermatt emerged again Friday successful a World Cup downhill.

Kilde edged Odermatt by 0.19 seconds to triumph 1 time aft his Swiss person had won a super-G successful different duel connected the storied Lauberhorn hill. They person present combined to triumph 11 of 19 men's World Cup events this season.

"Many times we took revenge connected each different and that's fun," said Odermatt, who similar Kilde aims to triumph a archetypal large title medal astatine the Beijing Olympics adjacent month. "He's a large guy, we're bully friends."

Beat Feuz was 3rd Friday, 0.30 down the Norwegian winner, portion seeking a grounds 4th triumph successful his location country's signature race.

WATCH | Kilde answers backmost time aft finishing down Odermatt:

Kilde's 2nd downhill triumph of the play was the 5th of his vocation and archetypal astatine 1 of the historical back-to-back contention venues successful January — the Lauberhorn astatine Wengen, and Hahnenkamm astatine Kitzbuhel, Austria.

"It's ever been a large extremity to triumph the large classics," Kilde said. "It's been a imagination day."

It earned him 100 points and lifted him to the apical of the season-long downhill standings. Still, the 2020 wide World Cup champion hardly chopped the spread connected Odermatt successful the wide standings.

Odermatt has six contention wins compared to Kilde's 5 yet his relentlessly accordant results person built an wide pb of astir 400 points.

A runner-up decorativeness successful Odermatt's first-ever downhill successful Wengen was adjacent much awesome for being faster than Feuz, his favoured teammate and a four-time defending World Cup downhill champion.

"He taught maine however to [race] here," Odermatt said of Feuz, who astatine 34 is 10 years older. "Yeah, he's a big, large assistance for maine successful downhill."

Both Odermatt and Kilde agreed Feuz volition commencement favourite connected Saturday implicit the afloat Lauberhorn region of 4.4 kilometres — easy the longest connected the World Cup circuit. They went connected the shorter 2.95-kilometre people Friday that is typically utilized successful the Alpine combined lawsuit which was dropped from the calendar this season.

"It's going to beryllium a situation tomorrow," Kilde acknowledged. "I cognize that Beat is beardown from the apical to the bottom."

Toronto's Jack Crawford, 24, was the highest-placing Canadian skier successful 16th, finishing 1.43 seconds backmost of Kilde.

The accelerated snowfall saw immoderate racers opt for antithetic tactics to chopped their velocity connected the constrictive Alpweg conception to hole for a tight, dilatory S-shaped bid of turns.

Kriechmayr's information was arguable with the Swiss squad starring vocal protests to the International Ski Federation due to the fact that helium did not implicit 1 of the midweek grooming runs that are usually mandatory to participate a downhill.

After investigating affirmative for COVID-19 and serving a quarantine play ordered by Austrian authorities, Kriechmayr lone arrived successful Wengen precocious Wednesday aft the grooming runs, though successful clip for the super-G race. He won the Lauberhorn contention successful 2019 and volition besides commencement Saturday.

Carlo Janka, the Lauberhorn victor and wide World Cup champion successful 2010, was 11th Friday and volition extremity his vocation Saturday racing successful beforehand of his location fans for the past time.