Mayer delights home crowd with WCup downhill victory
Curtoni leads Italian sweep at downhill, Shiffrin 4th
KITZBUEHEL, Austria, Jan 25, (AP): For the second time in two days at the 80th Hahnenkamm races, Matthias Mayer spread his arms and bent over backward in celebration.
While his leading time in Friday’s World Cup super-G didn’t hold up, his gutsy run on the Streif course on Saturday earned him the victory in the classic downhill, becoming the first Austrian winner of the event in six years.
In cloudy conditions but on a perfect track, Mayer finished 0.22 ahead of Austrian teammate Vincent Kriechmayr and Switzerland’s Beat Feuz, who tied for second.
“There is nothing better than crossing the finish in front of those thousands of people. It’s really incredible,” said Mayer, who won the super-G here three years ago.
“In Kitzbuehel there is always tension but I was just looking forward to this race, I wanted to enjoy it,” he added.
It was the eighth career World Cup win for the two-time Olympic champion and third of the season, after triumphing in a super-G in Lake Louise, Alberta, in December and an Alpine combined in Wengen, Switzerland, last week.
No Austrian had won the prestigious race, which is usually attended by tens of thousands of spectators, since Hannes Reichelt in 2014.
“It’s very important, simply cool,” Mayer said about winning one of the marquee events of the season.
World Cup downhill champion Feuz was denied victory in the circuit’s most challenging race once again, as he finished runner-up for the fourth time in the last five years.
“Again I was not fast enough,” Feuz said. “But second place on the most difficult course in Kitzbuehel, you have to be satisfied. In Wengen luck has been on my side three times, here in Kitzbuehel it has not been on my side.”
Feuz, however, extended his lead in the discipline standings, having finished in the top three each race this season.
Feuz is currently 96 points clear of Dominik Paris, who won the downhill here last season, while Mayer climbed to third, trailing Feuz by 180 points.
Paris has been ruled out for the remainder of the season after the Italian tore the ACL and fractured the fibula head in his right knee in a crash during super-G practice this week.
“It’s a shame what happened to Dominik. That was a super battle,” Feuz said. “The gap is a bit bigger now. But Mayer has also been top five all the time so I cannot allow myself to make mistakes.”
Feuz led the race until Kriechmayr clocked the same time. It was already the sixth race this season with a tie for a podium place, which also happened in Friday’s super-G.
Kriechmayr crashed in Thursday’s downhill training and placed a disappointing sixth in the super-G the next day.
“It was a good run, I wanted to show that I could do better than yesterday,” he said after the Austrian 1-2 finish. “Our fans have deserved this. We have don’t well in recent years.”
France duo Johan Clarey and Maxence Muzaton placed fourth and fifth, respectively, while Kjetil Jansrud, who won the super-G Friday, finished sixth.
American downhiller Steven Nythe man was among the fastest starters and still was ahead of Mayer’s time at the fourth split time but he couldn’t match the Austrian’s pace in the demanding bottom section of the course.
Nyman came 1.05 off the lead in 13th, five places behind the best American finisher, Bryce Bennett.
Peter Fill, who won the race in 2016 for one of his three career victories, failed to finish before announcing his retirement at the end of the season after 17 years on the circuit.
The 37-year-old Italian won the World Cup downhill title in back-toback seasons in 2016 and 2017, and the Alpine combined rankings the following year. Fill also won super-G silver at 2009 world championships.
The Hahnenkamm races traditionally end with a slalom on Sunday.
Meanwhile in Bansko, Bulgaria, Elena Curtoni led an Italian sweep of the podium at a women’s World Cup downhill on Saturday for her first career victory, while Mikaela Shiffrin placed fourth.
A late starter with bib No. 28, Curtoni benefited from improving visibility as the sun came out on the technically demanding Marc Girardelli course.
It helped her to beat Marta Bassino by 0.10 seconds and Federica Brignone by 0.14, respectively. It was the second time in the 53-year-history of the World Cup that the Italian team took the top three spots in a women’s downhill.
The previous time was two years ago in Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria, when Sofia Goggia won ahead of Brignone and Nadia Fanchini.
Curtoni had been on a World Cup podium three times before, but not since coming runner-up in a super-G in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in February 2017.
Later that year she tore the ACL in her right knee in a training crash at Copper Mountain, Colorado.
“It took me almost two years,” Curtoni said about working her way back.
“I dedicate this historic victory to all those who have been close to me, but I have never lost my smile, even in the moments of greatest despair,” she said. “Probably today it was destined to end like this, even my parents decided to come here.”
Her winning run Saturday bumped Shiffrin off the podium.
The three-time overall champion, who won a downhill on the same course Friday, finished 0.35 behind, with her American teammate Breezy Johnson 0.12 further back in fifth.
“I was pushing really hard,” Shiffrin said. “I felt like in some spots today the speed was a little bit higher. So I wasn’t taking like crazy risk but my skiing felt good.
“I am really excited and really proud how I skied the last couple of days,” she added.
Shiffrin closed the gap to leader Corinne Suter in the season’s downhill standings to 16 points. The Swiss skier finished the race in ninth.
Shiffrin leads the overall standings and is 270 points clear of Brignone, with Petra Vlhova of Slovakia 335 behind in third.
Joana Haehlen of Switzerland, who earned her first career podium in Friday’s race, skied out and slid into the safety netting but seemed unhurt.
The speed events in the Bulgarian resort will be concluded with a super-G race on Sunday.