Crawford wins and Alexander is 3rd in World Cup downhill as Canadian team impresses in Kitzbuehel

KITZBUEHEL, Austria (AP) — James Crawford became the first Canadian skier in 42 years to win the prestigious World Cup downhill on the Streif course, sharing the podium with his third-placed teammate Cameron Alexander on Saturday.

Wearing bib No. 20 and coming down after all pre-race favorites had completed their runs, Crawford stunned the field with an attacking run on one of the circuit’s most challenging courses.

He bumped then leader Alexis Monney into second position to deny the dominant Swiss team yet another victory.

”It’s definitely amazing. It’s been a dream of mine to win the classics,” Crawford said. “I think the mindset and the approach that I brought was good. It allowed me to be at top speed from top to bottom.”

Alexander’s run 15 minutes earlier had inspired Crawford to his winning effort.

“Cam and I go back and forth all the time in training and in racing,” Crawford said. “To see him pushing and skiing that way at the top, it kind of fired me up a little bit. I was like: ‘I know I can beat this guy, so let’s bring it today.’”

In front of 45,000 spectators, Monney took an early lead as the fourth starter and the Swiss skier looked set for his second career victory, weeks after triumphing in Bormio on the downhill course to be used for next year’s Milan-Cortina Olympics. Alexander also finished third in that race.

But Crawford, the super-G world champion, beat Monney by just 0.08 seconds for the Canadian’s first career World Cup win. Alexander trailed by 0.22 in third and Austria’s Daniel Hemetsberger was 0.43 behind in fourth.

“I’ve shown speed in downhill before and feel like I’ve been trying to get back to top speed for a while,” Crawford said. “I don’t have words that can describe the emotions. It’s just incredible and to do it in Kitzbuehel is even better.”

Monney admitted it hurt to miss out on what would have been the Swiss ski team’s 12th win this season.

“A bit, yeah, when you are ahead for so long. But it’s also what makes ski racing so beautiful,” Monney said.

The last Canadian winner of the iconic downhill in Kitzbuehel was Todd Brooker in 1983, and the last time two Canadian downhillers shared a World Cup podium was in February 2012, when Jan Hudec won and Erik Guay finished third in Chamonix, France.

The impressive result for the Canadian team came 10 days before the start of the world championships at another Austrian resort, Saalbach-Hinterglemm. Crawford in super-G and Alexander, who took bronze in downhill, won medals at the worlds in France two years ago.

Downhill world champion and three-time overall World Cup winner Marco Odermatt finished sixth, a day after the Swiss star triumphed in the super-G.

“It was a solid race, not the best, and with not the best race you can not win Kitzbuehel, the downhill,” Odermatt said. “A big goal and dream remains.”

Last year in Kitzbuehel, Odermatt finished runner-up to Cyprien Sarrazin, the French skier who has been out since undergoing surgery on a head injury sustained in a downhill training crash four weeks ago.

Sarrazin said in a video on his social media channels late Friday that he is recovering well, but suffers from double vision.

A slalom on Sunday concludes the 85th edition of the classic Hahnenkamm races, which have a total prize fund of more than $1 million.

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine/skiing