Kilde dominates Odermatt for 4th World Cup downhill victory of season

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 in Wengen after posting a time of one minute 43.14 seconds.

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 in 1:44.02. The defending overall World Cup champion now has six career runner-up finishes in downhill but has never won.

WATCH | Kilde extends downshill season lead, Gut-Behrami prevails in super-G:

Jack Crawford of Toronto placed 29th of 49 finishers in 1:45.56, followed by Broderick Thompson of Whistler, B.C.(32nd, 1:45.75), Kyle Alexander of North Vancouver, B.C., (34th, 1:45.97), North Vancouver's Brodie Seger (40th, 1:46.24) and Jeff Read of Canmore, Alta. (45th, 1:47.07). Cameron Alexander of North Vancouver did not finish.

Odermatt was the only racer within a second of Kilde, and Mattia Casse was 1.01 back in third (1:44.15). 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 Kitzbuhel, Austria, where he is a multiple winner on the mythic Streif slope.

The result was unofficial while low-ranked racers were yet to start.

19th World Cup victory

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 kilometres instead was raced from the super-G start just above the steep Hundschopf jump. It meant Kilde's winning time Saturday was almost five seconds less than in super-G on Friday.

Racers were still launched almost 40 metres off the jump and Odermatt crucially lost speed wobbling on his landing.

"The light was very, very bad. It was difficult to see the snow," he said of the overcast conditions.

Racers were slowed to about 75 kilometres per hour going through the S-shaped section mid-race and gained speed again to clock 145 km/h in the fastest straight known as Hanneggschuss.

In the 2013 Lauberhorn race, a World Cup speed record of 162 km/h was set by Johan Clarey of France. The course has since been curbed to control racers' speed.