(Beaver Creek Village) Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde won a second straight downhill to kick off the Alpine Skiing World Cup season in an event where Canadian James Crawford finished third on Saturday in Beaver Creek, Colorado .
Crawford, a 25-year-old Torontonian, stepped on a World Cup downhill podium for the first time in his career.
Kilde negotiated the course in one minute 42.09 seconds to finish ahead of Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt (1:42.15). Crawford stopped the clock at 1:42.88, a hundredth of a second ahead of Austria’s Matthias Mayer.
Kilde began defending his World Cup title in the downhill by winning the inaugural event last Saturday in Lake Louise, Alta.
The male skiers are scheduled to compete in a super-G on Sunday, also at Beaver Creek.