Aleksander Aamodt Kilde wins Aspen Downhill and Specialty Globe
After the bad weather conditions which had caused Friday the cancellation of the first descent of the weekend in Aspen, skies remained clement on Saturday and the race fair for the second act in Colorado. Once again with remarkable power and commitment on a route without great difficulty, the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde won his sixth downhill of the winter, and pocketed the specialty globe for the second season in a row.
He beat Canadian super-G world champion James Crawford, 2nd at 0.61, and Swiss leader in the overall World Cup standings, Marco Odermatt, 3rd at 0.64. The latter has a 346-point lead over Kilde in the race for the big globe, 7 races from the end of the season (or rather 6 knowing that neither Kilde nor Odermatt usually take part in slalom). Leader Friday when the descent was canceled after 24 athletes left, the Norwegian Adrian Smiseth Sejersted almost scored a big blow on Saturday since he was playing for the podium until a missed gate at the bottom of the course. A weekend to forget very quickly…
Johan Clarey, who is due to end his career in a few weeks unless there is a huge surprise, did not go far from the podium either (4th at 0”82), but committed several harmful faults at the end of the course.
More information to follow.
