The Alpine Skiing World Cup has continued with a men's super-G in Val Gardena/Gröden, Italy, and the season's first women's alpine combined in Val d'Isère, France.
Men's Super-G in Val Gardena/Gröden
Starting with the bib No. 4, the 23-year-old Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde took the lead of the super-G race by almost 0.99 seconds to Thomas Tumler. Kilde's time proved to be hard to beat. The first skier to go between Kilde and Tumler was the USA's Andrew Weibrecht with the bib No. 10. Weibrecht had trouble on the top section, yet on the bottom section he reduced the gap to 0.57 seconds to go to second place.
Kilde's lead time lasted also the attack of Austria's Matthias Mayer, but only very narrowly. Mayer went to second place, losing only 0.10 seconds.
The super-G World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal was the first to beat his young countryman's lead time. Svindal was already 0.55 second behind Kilde in the first split and still 0.19 seconds behind in the last split. However, with a very strong final section, Svindal took the lead by 0.44 seconds.
Starting after Svindal was the defending super-G World Cup champion and last year's Val Gardena winner, Kjetil Jansrud. Unlike Svindal, Jansrud had a clean top section and led Svindal by 0.45 seconds in the first split. However, with mistakes after that, his advantage was gone. He was 0.01 seconds behind Svindal in the final split, yet he couldn't match Svindal's great final section but finished in second place, 0.34 seconds from leader.
No changes happened on the top of the timesheet after Jansrud's run. Norway's "Attacking Vikings" swept the podium positions, Mayer finished fourth and Weibrecht fifth. The third place was the first podium position for Kilde, the 2013 giant slalom junior World Champion who is specializing in the speed disciplines on the World Cup tour.
Svindal leads the super-G World Cup by 80 points to second-placed Mayer and 88 points to third-placed Kilde. The defending champion Jansrud is fifth, 94 points behind.
The top two of the previous World Cup super-G race in Beaver Creek, Marcel Hirscher and Ted Ligety, did not race in the Val Gardena super-G. Hirscher remains on the top of the overall World Cup standings by 23 points over Svindal.
Women's Alpine Combined in Val d'Isère
Photo: Keystone/EPA/Guillaume Horcajuelo
The overall World Cup leader Lindsey Vonn set the quickest time of the downhill leg. The only skier to come even close to her time was Switzerland's Lara Gut, losing 0.38 seconds. Third skier to finish the downhill leg within a second from Vonn was Austrian speed specialist Cornelia Hütter, 0.88 seconds behind.
Austrian technical specialist Michaela Kirchgasser was one of the favorites for the comined race. She finished the downhill leg in 20th place, 2.97 seconds from Vonn. 10th in the reversed starting order for the slalom leg, Kirchgasser set the quickest slalom time and took the lead by 0.34 seconds from Slovenia's Maruša Ferk, 26th of the downhill leg. The other skiers who had finished the slalom leg were over 2.1 seconds from Kirchgasser.
The speed specialists who did well in the downhill leg had trouble to beat Kirchgasser's and Ferk's times. With the downhill leg's top two, Lara Gut and Lindsey Vonn, to go, Kirchgasser and Ferk were still leading the race with the downhill leg's 12th-placed Margot Bailet in third place.
Lara Gut's lead of 2.59 seconds after downhill was too much for Kirchgasser's time. Gut was able to stay ahead of Kirchgasser by 0.91 seconds.
The leader after the downhill leg, Lindsey Vonn, lost her lead of 0.38 seconds over Gut already by the first split and was trailing by 0.01 seconds. That remained as the gap until the finish line, so Gut won the alpine combined race in the narrowest possible way.
With today's win, Gut progressed to second place in the overall World Cup and reduced Vonn's lead by 20 points to 102 points.
The Alpine Skiing World Cup continues on Saturday in Val Gardena and Val d'Isère with men's and women's downhill races.