Val Gardena (Italy) (AFP) – Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde won the men’s World Cup downhill race at Val Gardena on Saturday, a day after teammate Aksel Lund Svindal won the Super-G for the “Attacking Vikings” in a race overshadowed by the horror crash suffered by Swiss skier Marc Gisin who was airlifted off the slope.
Kilde set a blistering pace of 1min 56.13sec down the Saslong piste to finish 0.86 seconds ahead of Austria’s Max Franz for his third World Cup career win, with Swiss Beat Feuz third at 0.92sec.
It was 26-year-old Kilde’s second World Cup downhill win.
He finished third in the Super-G in Beaver Creek in the United States earlier this month.
Svindal finished down in seventh a day after winning the Super G, as the Norwegian — wearing the number 18 bib — competed just after Gisin’s crash.
The race in the Italian Dolomites had been interrupted for half an hour as an unconscious Gisin was airlifted to hospital in Bolzano after suffering a spectacular high speed crash.
The 30-year-old lost control of his skis and was thrown high in the air just before the feared ‘camel hump’, sliding along the piste before finishing on his back.
Gisin’s sister Michelle — the Olympic combined gold medallist — told Italian media that her brother had regained consciousness and was in a stable condition in hospital, but had suffered a broken pelvis.
Austria’s Franz, winner of the downhill in Lake Louise, Canada and the Super-G at Beaver Creek (Etats-Unis), overtakes Svindal at the top of the overall World Cup standings.
Franz also leads the World Cup downhill standings, equal on points with Feuz.
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