(Rome) Bryce Bennett, for the first time on a podium in the Alpine Skiing World Cup, created a surprise by winning the descent of Val Gardena on Saturday, taking advantage in particular of the runway of the favorite, the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde .
The 29-year-old American, who arrived beyond the Top 20 during the first two descents of the season (26e in Lake Louise, 22e at Beaver Creek), climbed to the first step of a podium that was also totally unexpected: the Austrian Otmar Striedinger finished second at 14/100 and the Swiss Niels Hintermann third at 32/100.
Between them, they only had five cumulative podiums (only one victory, for Hintermann in combined in 2017) before the race.
But if he climbs for the first time on a podium on the occasion of his 107e World Cup race, Bennett has always had a good feeling with the “Saslong” of Val Gardena where he notably finished 4the during his last two runs (2018 and 2020).
“I’ve never been on a podium in my career, it’s incredible! “, Savored the Californian.
“In Val Gardena, I feel at ease. I had a clear plan in mind for the entire descent, I went to the starting gate with peace of mind. My expectations were not very high, that makes the victory even more beautiful, ”he added.
Kilde misses herself
Kilde, after her demonstration on Friday in Super-G, seemed however promised to a new double Super-G / descent on his favorite track, like last year, in view of the first intermediate times.
But the Norwegian, who came back in great shape eleven months after his knee injury, badly negotiated the main difficulty of the descent, the technical sequence between the bends of the “Curva del Lago” and the “meadows of Ciaslat” in the second half.
Arrived too quickly, the big favorite of the day took a too wide turn and missed a gate. He was thus eliminated while he remained on three successes in a row this season.
The other favorites experienced the same difficulties during this technical passage, perfectly negotiated by Bennett, and thus missed the opportunity to take advantage of Kilde’s misstep to widen the gap in the World Cup standings.
Austrian world champion Vincent Kriechmayr finishes 14e 1 second behind the winner and Matthias Mayer, leader of the classification of the specialty, only 16e at 1 sec 15/100.
Italian Dominik Paris (4e), at home, misses the podium for 8/100, the Swiss Beat Feuz (5e) for 15/100 and the Frenchman Johan Clarey (6e), author of a nice start, for 16/100.
The Swiss Marco Odermatt, who had skipped the descent to better focus on the two giants of Alta Badia on Sunday and Monday, retains the lead in the general classification for the big globe with 63 points ahead of Mayer.