(Lake Louise) Matthias Mayer won the World Cup downhill at Lake Louise, the first speed test of the season, for an Austrian double ahead of his compatriot Vincent Kriechmayr at 23/100 and the Swiss Beat Feuz at 35 / 100.
The skiers were finally able to launch the North American tour after the cancellation of a first descent on Friday in Lake Louise and the giant women planned in Killington (United States) on Saturday earlier in the day, due to bad weather conditions.
Under a gray sky, the Lake Louise track has reserved its podium for regulars and big winners: its three occupants have accumulated 68 top-3 downhill in the World Cup.
Olympic downhill champion in 2014, Matthias Mayer won at 31 his 11e victory on the circuit, the 7e in this discipline, ahead of the reigning world champion Vincent Kriechmayr.
Quadruple holder of the small globe of the specialty, Beat Feuz achieved as usual an excellent end of course to climb to 34 years on his 41e podium in downhill, equaling the record of compatriot Peter Müller and Austrian Franz Klammer.
The sensation rather came from the 4e Marco Odermatt’s place. The 24-year-old Swiss thus achieved his best result in the discipline, where he has shown constant progress for a year despite a lighter build than the pure specialists.
Odermatt also seemed to make several small mistakes in the midst of the nearly two-minute effort, leaving him still an interesting margin for improvement.
Winner of the opening giant at the end of October in Sölden (Austria), he retains the lead in the general classification of the World Cup, for which he presents himself more than ever as one of the favorites, after being deprived of the title in the spring by Alexis Pinturault.
The Frenchman took the start in Lake Louise of the 5e descent of his career to the highest level only, without once again succeeding in scoring points despite an encouraging performance (32e at 2 sec 35, the first 30 score).
“I am extremely happy, he assured. My goal was to take benchmarks, not necessarily to score points. Finishing 2 sec 35 from the winner while the visibility decreases as the passages go, it’s a very good race. ”
Pinturault was able to make his mark before the super-G scheduled for Sunday at 8:15 p.m. on the same track, a discipline where he is able to play the leading roles (he was world bronze medalist in February at Cortina d’Ampezzo), despite the profile of the Canadian track which he considers little to his advantage.