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Hvitifjell, Norway — It was a rare day without a podium finish for dominant World Cup skier Marko Odermatt, but teammate Niels Hintermann stepped up for Saturday’s downhill run. and brought victory to Switzerland.
Hintermann won his second downhill victory, almost two years after winning at the same resort in Norway, beating second-placed Vincent Kriechmayr of Austria by 0.08 seconds.
In March 2022, Hintermann shared the win with Cameron Alexander. On Saturday, the Canadian world championship bronze medalist was third, 0.19 behind.
“It’s completely inexplicable,” Hintermann said of winning twice with Hvitfjell. He said: “I didn’t feel like my run was perfect. I felt like he could have gone half a second or a second faster.”
Hintermann has six downhill podiums, including three in Hvitfjell, and won the combined event in Wengen seven years ago.
After a run that seemed to lack a bit of his usual fluency, Odermatt shared seventh place with American racer Ryan Cochran-Siegle, 0.75 seconds behind.
This is the third time Odermatt has not finished in the top three in 19 games across all disciplines this season. He won 10 of those races, including his first win in the downhill at Wengen in January.
“My run was okay. There were maybe one or two places where I could have improved by a hundredth or two-hundredths of a second,” said Odermatt, the world downhill champion.
With Cyprien Sarrazin, his main rival for the downhill title, absent from the race, Odermatt extended his lead in the event standings.
Announced by the French Ski Federation. Sarrazin fell during training on Friday and injured his left calf.. Sarrazin, who won two downhills in Kitzbühel last month, is also Odermatt’s closest challenger in the overall standings.
Odermatt said he had no reservations about racing because of his rival’s absence.
“I always try to focus on myself and always want to win,” said the Swiss star, who is approaching his third overall title.
Sarrazin’s teammate Nils Alegre had a bad crash during the race, sliding off the track and into the safety net. Allegret, who won his first World Cup victory in the super-G in Germany three weeks ago, was knocked down for a while, but the French skier eventually got back up and appears to have avoided serious injury.
Cochran Seagle was seventh, followed by Bryce Bennett in fourth, Sam Morse in 10th, Jared Goldberg in 17th, and Kyle Negomil and Wiley Maple tied for 19th, making six players in the top 20. This further added to the good results of the US team.
For Morse and Negomil, this marked career-best results.
Sunday’s super-G concludes the Norwegian race weekend.
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