Cater pulls off upset in men’s downhill
VAL D’ISERE, France — Unheralded Martin Cater won the first downhill of the World Cup season on Sunday.
The 27year-old Slovenian’s career-best result was eighth in his 38 previous World Cup downhills.
Cater was 0.22 seconds faster than Otmar Striedinger to deny the Austrian his first career win. Striedinger had a best of third place in his 64 previous World Cup downhills.
Urs Kryenbuhl was third, 0.27 back, after the littleknown Swiss seemed set for his debut win after being fastest of the top 20-ranked racers. He had a single top-10 result in his 41 career World Cup races.
The defending World Cup overall champion, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, was pushed down to fourth by Cater’s surprise success.
Beat Feuz and Dominik Paris, the most prolific downhill racers in recent years, placed sixth and 10th, respectively.
More skiing: A women’s giant slalom in the Alpine skiing World Cup was postponed Sunday after heavy snowfall in the French Alps. The International Ski Federation cited “the inconsistency of the snow surface” at Courchevel for postponing the race to Monday.
Auto racing: Red Bull driver Max Verstappen won the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand
Prix in dominant style for his second victory of the season and 10th of his career.
Soccer: Neymar was taken off on a stretcher deep into stoppage time as Paris Saint-germain lost 1-0 at home to Lyon to drop to third place in the French league. ... D.C. United finalized the trade of Costa Rican midfielder Ulises Segura to 2021 MLS expansion team Austin FC for $150,000 in general allocation money.
Obituary: Pierre Lacroix, the astute executive who was the architect of two Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup championship teams, has died. He was 72.