WENGEN, Switzerland (AP) — The dominant men’s downhill racer is Aleksander Aamodt Kilde — clearly.
Kilde won Switzerland’s marquee World Cup race Saturday by a big margin for his fourth win in six downhills this season.
“It’s flowing pretty well now, it’s really a lot of fun. I feel so happy skiing,” Kilde told Swiss broadcaster RTS.
That Kilde won with Swiss standout Marco Odermatt second was less of a surprise than the gap between them on a shortened version of the storied Lauberhorn course — 0.88 seconds.
“It’s super with the second place but the time was really too much,” said Odermatt, who shook his head on crossing the finish line. The defending overall World Cup champion now has six career runner-up finishes in downhill but has never won.
Odermatt was the only racer within a second of Kilde, and Mattia Casse was 1.01 back in third. The 32-year-old Italian matched his career-best result of third last month at Val Gardena, Italy, that Kilde also won.
In his last race at Wengen before retiring, three-time Lauberhorn winner Beat Feuz was never in contention placing fifth, 1.25 behind Kilde. Olympic downhill champion Feuz will stop after the two downhills next weekend at Kitzbühel, Austria, where he is a multiple winner on the mythic Streif slope.
The result was unofficial while low-ranked racers were yet to start.
Kilde also won the super-G race Friday, yet it was another strong day for Switzerland. Five Swiss racers placed in the top 10 after seven were top-15 finishers in super-G.
The Norwegian star’s 19th career World Cup win was his 10th in downhill. His 100 race points extended the lead over Odermatt to in the season-long discipline standings to 119.
Kilde, the 2020 overall World Cup champion, is only slowly closing the gap on Odermatt’s lead for the giant crystal globe. Odermatt now leads by 340.
The 93rd edition of the Alpine nation’s signature winter sports event started lower down the mountain because of strong winds in the top section.
The longest course on the World Cup circuit, at 4.3 kilometers (2 2/3 miles), instead was raced from the super-G start just above the steep Hundschopf jump. It meant Kilde’s winning time Saturday of 1 minute, 43 seconds was almost five seconds less than in super-G on Friday.