Kilde wins World Cup downhill at Beaver Creek

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde notched his second World Cup win in two days on Saturday, sweeping to a downhill victory at Beaver Creek a day after cementing his return from injury with a super-G triumph.

Kilde clocked 1min 39.63sec on the Birds of Prey course in Colorado, with Austrian Matthias Mayer settling for the second step of the podium, 66-hundredths of a second back.

Switzerland’s Beat Feuz, the four-time defending champion in the discipline, was third, 1.01sec behind the winner.

“It’s unbelievable,” Kilde said. “I love to be here, love to be back competing. Great weather, great conditions, great crowd and good skiing – that’s a good package.”

Kilde, who won the overall title in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, saw his 2021 campaign cut short by a ruptured right knee ligament last January.

Now he has two wins in four races since his return this season, and another shot at the Birds of Prey in a downhill on Sunday.

He dedicated the win to teammate Kjetil Jansrud, who suffered knee ligament damage in a spectacular crash on Friday.

“This run is for him,” Kilde said.

Jansrud, whose five Olympic medals include super-G gold in 2014, flew into the catch netting after losing control on a turn in Friday’s super-G.

He eventually was able to make his way gingerly down the hill on his own skis and was taken to hospital for evaluation.

“After (he hit) the nets – it was a really emotional day yesterday,” Kilde said. “We should all give him a hand for the behavior he had after he crashed, coming down, being a hero.”

The Norwegian ski federation it was too early to assess the severity of the injury and Jansrud will travel home with the team on Monday and have his injured knee evaluated again.

The jam-packed Beaver Creek schedule, featuring two super-Gs and two downhills, comes after one of two scheduled downhills and a super-G were cancelled at Lake Louise last weekend because of excessive snow.

Mayer, a two-time Olympic gold medallist with his sights on the Beijing Winter Games, won the only race contested in the Canadian Rockies, leading Vincent Kriechmayr in an Austrian one-two in the first downhill of the season.

Marco Odermatt, who won Thursday’s super-G and finished runner-up to Kilde on Friday, finished 15th but remained atop the overall World Cup standings with 346 points. Matthias is in second with 310 and Kilde jumped into third on 229.