The Alpine Skiing World Cup continues this weekend with men's races in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and women's races in Maribor. On Saturday, men had a downhill and women a giant slalom.

Young skiers on top in Garmisch downhill

Starting with the bib No. 3, Boštjan Kline of Slovenia claimed the lead after his run. He narrowly remained in the lead after the run of Switzerland's Beat Feuz who lost only by 0.02 seconds.

Yet another skier narrowly missed the lead right after Feuz; Christof Innerhofer went into third place, just 0.03 seconds from Kline. Kline, Feuz, and Innerhofer remained in the top three still when the top group of seven skiers started from the bib No. 16.

Guillermo Fayed of France started the top group. He was third in the downhill World Cup before Garmisch and one of the main title contenders as the points leader Svindal is out for the rest of the season. In Garmisch he didn't manage to get a good result for his title campaign; he was 22nd in the final results, third race in a row where he failed to finish inside the top 20.

Second in the downhill standings behind the injured Svindal, last week's Kitzbühel downhill winner Peter Fill couldn't get another win in a row. His result in Garmisch was an 11th place.

One of the season's three previous downhill winners, Adrien Théaux of France showed great form again in Garmisch. Still he narrowly missed Kline's lead time and even the podium; he went into fourth place after his run, just 0.07 seconds behind Kline.

Hannes Reichelt of Austria had a heavy crash in the Kitzbühel downhill last week. He survived the crash with a bone bruise in his left knee and was already able to race in Garmisch. He was having a great run and narrowly leading Kline in the third split time. However, after that he missed the line and went off the course, unable to finish his run.

Kline's time remained still in the lead after the last two starters of the top group. Kjetil Jansrud finished the race in 17th place in the final results and Dominik Paris in 13th place in the final results.

After the top group, there still remained eight skiers with start list rankings inside the top 30. Norway's Aleksander Aamodt Kilde was the last of those. He was trailing Kline just narrowly throughout his run until a mistake extended the gap to 0.33 seconds at the final split. Yet Kline's finish wasn't particularly quick and Kline was able to turn the gap into a win by 0.22 seconds at the finish line.

Both Kilde and Kline are junior World Champions of the 2010s. Although Kilde has made his breakthrough on the World Cup tour as a speed specialist, his junior World title is from giant slalom in 2013. The win in Garmisch was Kilde's first on the World Cup tour and his first podium finish in downhill.

Boštjan Kline is the 2011 junior World Champion in downhill and super-G. The second place in Garmisch was his first podium finish on the World Cup tour.

Third-placed Beat Feuz continues his strong comeback after an Achilles injury. Two weeks ago he had his comeback weekend in Wengen, last week he was second in the Kitzbühel downhill, and now third place in the Garmisch downhill for the 2012 downhill and overall World Cup runner-up.

Aksel Lund Svindal leads the downhill World Cup but the knee injury sustained in Kitzbühel will keep him out for the rest of the season. Peter Fill remains in second place, 121 points behind Svindal with four downhill races remaining. Adrien Théaux is in third place, 46 points behind Fill, and Guillermo Fayed in fourth place, 68 points behind Fill.

Second GS win in a row for Rebensburg

Stanko Gruden/Agence Zoom/Getty Images Europe
Stanko Gruden/Agence Zoom/Getty Images Europe

The giant slalom World Cup leader Eva-Maria Brem set the quickest time of the first run in Maribor. Her gap to second-placed Viktoria Rebensburg was 0.37 seconds. Brem's closest rival in the GS standings, Lara Gut, was third of the first run, 0.53 seconds behind. Third in the GS standings before Maribor, Federica Brignone was the most notable non-finisher of the first run. 

The overall World Cup leader Lindsey Vonn was 12th after the first run. However, she failed to finish the second run and leaves Maribor with no World Cup points gained.

The 30-year-old Slovenian Ana Drev has reached a new level of skiing this season, achieving her first career podium two weeks ago in the Flachau GS. Repeating that in her home country in Maribor seemed difficult after the first run; she was in sixth place, 1.30 seconds from lead and 0.77 seconds from podium. However, a strong second run kept her podium hopes alive. Starting after her, Tina Weirather and Nina Løseth couldn't beat the lead time and Drev was still leading with three skiers remaining.

As Lindsey Vonn failed to score points in Maribor, the overall World Cup second-placed Lara Gut was presented a great opportunity to reduce the 45-point gap and even claim the lead in the standings. However Gut couldn't capitalize the opportunity as she failed to finish the race. That also secured Drev a podium spot in her home race.

Viktoria Rebensburg had a lead of 0.93 seconds to Drev after the first run. Although she couldn't match Drev's second run, the advantage after the first run was big enough to claim the lead by 0.32 seconds.

The second run of Eva-Maria Brem, the leader after the first run, concluded the race. Despite the lead of 0.37 seconds, she ended up losing by 0.41 seconds and finished in fourth place behind Rebensburg, Drev, and Weirather.

With the second consecutive giant slalom win, Rebensburg climbed into second place of the GS World Cup and reduced the gap to the leader Brem to 32 points. Rebensburg also climbed into third place of the overall World Cup, 220 points behind the leader Vonn.

Lara Gut is in third place in the GS standings (80 points to Brem) and Federica Brignone is in fourth place (117 points to Brem) with two giant slaloms remaining.

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About the author
Kalle Tyynelä
Motorsports and alpine skiing writer. Also interested in tennis and sports business.