Dhe Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde won the downhill run from Val Gardena. In the first speed classic of the ski season, last year’s overall World Cup winner relegated American Ryan Cochran-Siegle (+0.22 seconds) and Beat Feuz from Switzerland (+0.54) to the other places in 2: 01.45 minutes. With his favorite victory on Saturday, Kilde again took the lead in the battle for the overall World Cup. He had already won the Super-G in Val Gardena 24 hours earlier.
Romed Baumann’s eighth place (+0.90) jumped out for the German starters. The Bavarian by choice, who came from Austria, fulfilled the norm for the World Ski Championships in Cortina in February in his 300th World Cup race. “It was a big anniversary for me, it’s still as much fun as in the first race,” said the 34-year-old. On the demanding Saslong he would even have made his first World Cup podium in over five years, had the veteran on the Ciaslat meadow not been a little too timid. Nevertheless, he was “satisfied, it was a really cool day”. He rated the top ten result as a “cool graduation before Christmas.”
Andreas Sander, who had finished fifth in the Super-G the day before, ended up in 16th place (+1.53) with the unfavorable start number 29. “That was definitely not an ideal trip, there would have been more,” he said and was annoyed a little about his indecision in some sections. But he was satisfied with the “constant start to the season”, emphasized Sander.
Weidle in fifth place with a lot of fun
In the meantime, Kira Weidle narrowly missed her first podium finish in the World Cup and achieved a real respectable success. The Starnberg woman took a strong fifth place in the fifth World Cup downhill success of the Italian Olympic champion Sofia Goggia in Val d’Isere. The only German starter was 0.32 seconds short of her third World Cup “podium”, the winner Goggia won on the demanding “OK” slope in 1: 44.70 minutes ahead of Swiss Corinne Suter (+0.24) and the American Breezy Johnson (+0.27).
Kira Weidle: “That was fun.”
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Image: EPA
“It was a lot of fun, it’s a cool day,” said Weidle with a big smile, “the result is okay.” So far, she has only been better in her two third places and fourth place in winter 2018/19. Weidle had presented with starting number 2 and initially only had to let Goggia and the World Cup runner-up Suter pass. “Unfortunately” Johnson was also faster, she said, “but I am very satisfied with my run.” The fact that Norwegian Kajsa Vickhoff Lie pushed herself in front of her with the high start number 30 did not change her basic satisfaction.
The race gave her self-confidence again, said Weidle, who crashed in both training runs. In the first downhill of the season on Friday in the same place, she was eleventh, but saw with horror how several competitors had accidents – all at the point that had become her undoing in training. Former Super-G World Champion Nicole Schmidhofer (Austria) tore her cruciate ligament and collateral ligament in her left knee. The accident passage was defused for the second race.
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