Kilde Takes DH World Cup Title

There’s no better way to start the World Cup Finals with two nail-biting downhill races. The men’s race had four guys all challenging for the cup title, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (NOR), Beat Feuz (SUI), Matthias Mayer (AUT) and Dominik Paris (ITA), however only one of them made it on the podium. 

Racing to retain his downhill World Cup title, Feuz tackled the course first and set an impressive time of 1:50.97, which Kilde could not beat. Kilde finished 0.31 seconds behind Feuz which put his chances of winning the downhill globe at risk. After having a troublesome season, Vincent Kriechmayr (AUT) gave it his all in the final downhill of the season and clocked in the fastest time of the day, winning his second downhill race of the season. Marco Odermatt (SUI) who was still chasing his first downhill victory finished 0.34 seconds off the leader, claimed his fourth downhill podium finish of the season. Luckily for Kilde, having both Odermatt and Kriechmayr finish ahead of Feuz, secured the downhill globe for the Norwegian by 13 points. However, having not won today’s race, Kilde lost all chances of winning the overall globe.

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde is Shiffrin's boyfriend and he and Shiffrin spent significant time talking about L'Eclipse and their game plan heading into Wednesday. “He’s skiing the course, so obviously he knows how it’s feeling…how the surface feels, and we’re talking about skiing a lot, so it’s really pretty easy for me to understand his points," Shiffrin shared. "From the first training, he said, ‘be smart in these key sections and then just good turns.’ It was just simple and clear. And then I felt very comfortable with where I was going on the track all of the time, so then I felt like I could really push and ski with good intention and timing. It worked perfectly. I love talking about skiing with Aleks. He’s an amazing skier, so I love to watch him and I love to talk about it with him.”

Paris and Mayer both needed to win the race of having a chance to win the downhill globe, however, they placed 6th and 12th, respectively.