Lillehammer (Norway) (AFP) – Dominik Paris powered to his first World Cup victory of the season in the final downhill race of the campaign in Lillehammer on Saturday. The 36-year-old Italian edged out Olympic champion Franjo von Allmen by 0.19 seconds, with Vincent Kriechmayr completing the podium in third.
Paris avoided only a second season without a World Cup win since 2012 with a brilliant performance in Norway, notching the 25th victory of his career on the circuit. “It’s really a surprise for me that I had such a good run today,” said Paris, whose last three World Cup wins have come at the 1994 Olympic venue. “It’s very cool to race here. It’s a nice course; it’s not so easy to be fast, but I figured it out.”
Related news
Swiss star Marco Odermatt could only finish seventh but had already long wrapped up a fifth consecutive overall World Cup crown and third straight downhill crystal globe. “The whole season was amazing,” said Odermatt. “Every globe has a little bit another story behind it, another road to the globe. This year was my most consistent downhill season.”
Slovenian Miha Hrobat, without a World Cup podium all season, set the early pace in bib number one until being replaced at the top of the leaderboard by Switzerland’s Alexis Monney. Odermatt made a fast start to his run and appeared set to take the lead until making a late mistake as he posted his worst downhill finish of the season. Austria’s Kriechmayr usurped Monney but was decisively knocked off top spot by a storming run from Paris, who also won a downhill on the same piste 12 months ago.
The veteran proved he can still beat the world’s best after a stuttering season that had previously only delivered two World Cup podiums, albeit also an Olympic bronze medal on home snow. Von Allmen threatened Paris’s advantage as he targeted a third World Cup downhill victory of the campaign, but the Swiss came up just short in the final sector. Monney had to settle for fourth place, with Hrobat in fifth.
The men are back in action on Sunday with the last super-G race of the season—another discipline in which Odermatt has already secured the title.
© 2024 AFP
