Odermatt edges Sarrazin in World Cup downhill marred by serious crash for Kilde

WENGEN, Switzerland (AP) — A serious crash for his friend and biggest rival Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who was airlifted to a hospital, took some pleasure away from a stellar win for Swiss star Marco Odermatt in his nation’s signature ski race on Saturday.

Kilde crashed within sight of the finish of the longest downhill on the World Cup circuit just minutes after Odermatt raced to what might have been his best win in an already standout career at age 26.

“A bitter-sweet day, for sure, when you see a friend like Alex crashing that hard,” said Odermatt, calling the performance to earn a 31st career World Cup win “probably one of the best ever from my side.”

Kilde, the overall World Cup champion in 2020 and long-time partner of American star Mikaela Shiffrin, had lengthy treatment on his right leg while laying flat next to the finish line. A helicopter came to the finish area and Kilde was winched up laying on a medical board to be taken to a hospital.

It was a tiring — and perhaps excessive — third straight day of speed racing at Switzerland’s most storied ski venue. On Friday, 2021 overall champion Alexis Pinturault of France was airlifted after sustaining a season-ending knee injury in a crash.

“Maybe we had a lesson now,” said Odermatt, who won the shorter downhill Thursday that was added to the program, and placed second on Friday in the scheduled super-G. “I really don’t think we need three races here, even if it was good for me.”

The 31-year-old Kilde is renowned as one of the strongest ski racers, yet had been fighting sickness this week in Wengen before placing third in both the shorter downhill and super-G, which ran close to 1 minute, 50 seconds as the longest super-G of the season.

An unusually intense race schedule at Wengen — with the first downhill replacing one canceled last month at Beaver Creek, Colorado — was to peak with the classic Lauberhorn event Saturday over a full 4.3-kilometer (2 2/3-mile) course.

Odermatt and Cyprien Sarrazin of France traded wins on the previous two days and finished 1-2 again in downhill Saturday, far ahead of all rivals.

Odermatt’s winning time of just over 2 minutes, 25 seconds is about a full half-minute more than any other downhill this season. Sarrazin was 0.59 seconds back, and third-place Dominik Paris trailed by 1.92, a massive gap in men’s downhill.

Kilde started making errors more than two minutes into his run approaching the twisting final section. He was unbalanced on his skis entering the curves then made another error entering the left-hand turn down into the finish.

“It was a very hard week for all of us and especially if you were sick like he was,” Odermatt said of Kilde. “Maybe the energy level was not high enough for today.”

Sarrazin was visibly upset in the finish area on seeing Kilde’s crash less than 100 meters (yards) away.

“Again, it’s a bad feeling like with Alexis yesterday,” said the Frenchman, whose breakout season brought a first career downhill last month at Bormio, Italy, where Odermatt was second.

“It’s three days of racing here and we finish with the longest (race),” said Sarrazin. “Three days is really hard physically.”

There was no immediate injury report on Kilde, who tore the ACL in his right knee three years ago. That injury ended the defence of his World Cup title when he was the closest challenger to Pinturault.

Odermatt extended his points lead in both the season-long downhill standings and the overall contest where he is favored to win a third straight title. He has double the race points of second-place Marco Schwarz, whose season was ended crashing in the Bormio downhill. Sarrazin is now third overall.

Odermatt excelled Saturday retaining speed through the technically demanding S-shaped section midway down the course. On crossing the finish line, he leaned back with his arms stretched wide and took the acclaim from a noisy Swiss crowd.

Racers enjoyed near-perfect racing conditions on the picture postcard Lauberhorn hill with more cloudless bright blue skies and temperatures at minus-2 Celsius (28 Fahrenheit).

The snow surface was faster than in the downhill Thursday with a top speed of 150.4 kph (93.5 mph) clocked by American Ryan Cochran-Siegle on the Hanneggschuss straight about two minutes into the course. Cochran-Siegle placed ninth, trailing 2.77 behind the winner.

The fastest straight at Wengen is where Johan Clarey of France in 2013 set a World Cup speed record of 161.9 kph (100.6 mph). The course has since been amended to curb speeds.

The speed racers now move to the classic Austrian downhill venue Kitzbühel where the Hahnenkamm race next Saturday is the most feared and prized on the men’s circuit.

They will skip the fourth race at Wengen, a slalom on Sunday.

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