Dominik Paris triumphs in the descent of the Val Gardena, valid for the Ski World Cup. The Italian, fresh from a negative season, with a time of 1’59″84 preceded the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde by 44 hundredths, the American Bryce Bennett third. Mattia Casse seventh, Florian Schieder sixteenth, Christof Innerhofer twentieth. For Paris , at their 22nd Cup success, is the first victory on the home track and missed the highest podium since March 5, 2022 in the Norwegian downhill in Kvitfjell.
The race
The Italian sent his audience into raptures when they arrived at the foot of the Saslong to support him on a track that had never seen him win. The 34-year-old from Val d’Ultimo made the best use of the smoothness and presented himself in view of the bends with a six-tenths advantage over Kilde. The South Tyrolean worked the bumps present on the Sochers as best he could, being able to tackle the Curva del Lago and the Prati di Ciaslat with a little more rigidity, recording the highest speed in view of the last intermediate which saw him finish with the winning time of 1’59″84.
Before now the Saslong had not given him great satisfaction in his career: only one podium, third place in the downhill in 2014. With this victory Paris returned Italy to the top step of the podium in the Val Gardena downhill after 22 years : it was December 14, 2001 when Christian Ghedina won for the fourth time.
The triumph number 22 of his career allows him to consolidate third position in the ranking of all-time men’s World Cup winners and Italy to reach 193 successes. He remains unreachable at the top of the overall rankings Alberto Tombawho reached 50 successes (35 in slalom and 15 in giant slalom), followed by Gustavo Thoeni with 24 triumphs (11 in giant slalom, 9 in slalom and 4 in combined).
Paris’ joy
“I wasn’t sure I would get a result, I tried to ski well, nice and clean. In the end I felt I was making my skis run but I had no idea what I was doing.” These are Paris’ words to Raisport after the victory. “When I saw the green light of the best time at the finish line did I go crazy? Yes, this time it was very exciting, I’ve been trying here for years and I finally succeeded, too good. Today the snow was a little different, it was less hard and smoother, I tried to do the jumps well and I think I made the difference there by maintaining the speed. I struggled a lot, even last year, and I finally succeeded. For now the year started well,” he added.
