Garmisch Is 3rd Downhill Win Of The Season For Beat Feuz

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is the last stop on the men’s Audi FIS Ski World Cup Tour before the Olympics and the last downhill was held today on the Kandahar course. After Lake Louise and Wengen, Beat Feuz was able to claim a third win of the season, ahead of the duo Vincent Kriechmayr and Dominik Paris tied in second place.

The Swiss “Kugelblitz” was impressive on the fast and dark track of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where we earned two 3rd places in 2016 and 2017 already. Especially on the “Free Fall” section, one of the steepest of the World Cup with an approx. steepness of 90%, Beat Feuz was able to gain time and could carry his speed all the way to the finish. This third downhill win of the season allows the World Champion from Switzerland to sit in the lead of the discipline standings, 40 points ahead of his main contender Aksel Lund Svindal.

Two athletes were only +0.18 behind him, tied in second place. Austria’s Vincent Kriechmayr and South Tyrolean Dominik Paris. Kriechmayr is in a fantastic shape at the moment. His technically clean and smooth skiing allows him to be fast and brought him his first World Cup win earlier in the season in the super-g in Beaver Creek. Going into his first Olympic Games, the Carenthian is in the 6th place in the downhill standings and in the 3rd place in the super-g. Despite four DNF or DSQ, it is definitely his best season at the moment. Dominik Paris is coming back from a cold that prevented him to ski at his best level in Kitzbuehel. Even though he grabbed two medals at the Junior World Championships back in 2009 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, he never made it on the podium since and was eager to confirm his solid performance in the second training. The winner of this season’s Bormio downhill celebrated his 22nd career podium in the Bavarian venue.

Bryce Bennett (Squaw Valley, Calif.) led the American Downhillers in 16th on the Kandahar track in Saturday’s FIS Ski World Cup downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Tommy Biesemeyer (Keene, N.Y.) was 29th.

“Last week in Kitzbuehel I was pretty focused on the result,” Bennett said. “Today I had a good plan of what I wanted to ski, and a plan on how I was going to execute that technically, and that’s all I focused on and it was pretty solid.”