The snow was on the roofs and the tall fir trees along the slope in Beaver Creek in the USA, it was white almost everywhere on the course on Saturday, only the tailwind and headwind disturbed some skiers. Nevertheless, one is probably not exaggerating when one speaks of a winter wonderland on the so-called raptor slope, after all it was a pleasant -4 degrees Celsius when the fastest ski racers in the world threw themselves down on this quite strenuous route, whose goal itself was almost 2700 altitude meters in the Rocky Mountains. Down at the finish line, this makes even the biggest muscle packs pant a lot.
Even Aleksander Aamodt Kilde blew heavily when he slouched in the lead seat early in the race. The Norwegian should not leave this position on Saturday. And so this winter sports season, at least after three competitions, has its clear dominator on the high-speed tracks: that Kilde. 1-2-1, that’s not the formation of a successful indoor soccer team, but those are the results of the Norwegian in the speed disciplines of this still young ski winter.
In Lake Louise in Canada, the 30-year-old won the downhill and took second place in the Super-G. Now on the second stop of the North American tour in Colorado he grabbed the next downhill success. And the pre-season is added to the Dominator’s vita: In that he secured the two small crystal globes for the Downhill and Super-G World Cup victory. Incidentally, in the winter of 2019/20 he became overall World Cup winner.
Only the Swiss Odermatt comes close to Kilde
In Beaver Creek he put almost eight tenths of a second between himself and the rest at the finish. Only one came close to him later: the Swiss Marco Odermatt, the overall World Cup winner of the previous season, who won the Super-G in Lake Louise last week and now finished six hundredths of a second behind Kilde. Also in the descent from Lake Louise, Odermatt was temporarily faster than Aamodt Kilde on the track, only he seems to be able to match Kilde’s consistency at the moment. Canadian James Crawford took third place (+0.79 seconds). As the best German, Romed Baumann was sixth (+0.99)
All three were part of the first ten starters. Kilde’s number six seemed to be just the right one, after all it got darker later and visibility on the track was much more difficult. The drivers in front of him, on the other hand, had to play a little “snowplough” because it had snowed heavily in the past few days. On Friday, the originally planned downhill run in Beaver Creek was canceled due to strong winds and heavy snowfall. The day after, the fresh snow slowed down the athletes a bit in many passages, which they had to adjust to in comparison to the still sunny conditions during the training runs. Romed Baumann, who started first, nevertheless used the starting position for a good time.
The other Germans also did well: Dominik Schwaiger, number 19 and strong headwinds in the upper section, finished 13th (+1.29), followed directly by Josef Ferstl (+1.31). Andreas Sander (19th) and Thomas Dreßen (24th) also finished in the points on Saturday.
Of course none of them could get close to the currently dominating Norwegian Kilde in the winter wonderland of Colorado. The speed elite will soon have their next chance: on Sunday evening from 6 p.m. the Super-G will take place at the same place.