Kriechmayr fifth

Unbeatable! Odermatt wins Beaver Creek downhill

Marco Odermatt(Bild: AFP/SEAN M. HAFFEY)

First downhill of the new World Cup season and the overall World Cup dominator of the past few years is back at the top - Marco Odermatt has impressively won the shortened downhill in Beaver Creek!

The Swiss racer came out on top on the notorious "Birds of Prey" course, clearly ahead of the US American Ryan Cochran-Siegle (+0.30 seconds) and the Norwegian Adrian Smiseth Sejersted (+0.69). The best Austrian was Vincent Kriechmayr in 5th place, 0.87 seconds behind, 18 hundredths off the final podium place held by world champion Franjo von Allmen.

Third top 10 result for Eichberger in the downhill
Two places behind the Upper Austrian was Stefan Eichberger from Styria, who missed Odermatt's best time by 0.96 seconds, but was delighted with his third top 10 result in a World Cup downhill.

The result:

Odermatt celebrated the fifth downhill victory of his career, and it was the 48th success overall for the Swiss racer, who has set the tone in the overall World Cup for years. "I'm very happy with the victory, the feeling was very good," Odermatt told ORF in the finish area. The skis had fitted perfectly "and when you can feel that, little can happen. You can ski actively, not that the steep slope is skiing with you, that makes a big difference". It's cool when you win the season opener in three disciplines, "you can see that everything fits."

Kriechmayr: "Slid a little too much!"
The Austrians finished next to the downhill podium on the notorious Raubvogel slope, as they had done throughout the previous season. The last time an Austrian won in the fastest discipline was two and a half years ago, with Michael Walchhofer last doing so in Beaver Creek in 2007. "Of course I would have liked to have done better. A fifth place is not bad, but of course I would have liked to have done better, I slid a bit too much in the steeps, I was too straight down the last left turn - you're not there," regretted runner-up Kriechmayr in the ORF interview. At the speed start in the super-G in Copper, the veteran finished second ahead of two ÖSV team colleagues.

Haaser: "There's still plenty of room for improvement in the flat section!"
Eichberger, who finished 0.96 seconds behind Odermatt, was delighted with his top place. "It's a load off my mind, this is a good start to the downhill season," said the 25-year-old. The remaining ÖSV athletes around Raphael Haaser (19th) finished outside the top 15 in increasingly poor visibility. "There is still a lot of room for improvement in the flat section, but the rest was passable," said giant slalom world champion Haaser.

ÖSV head coach Marko Pfeifer was "not dissatisfied" with the overall result. Kriechmayr had missed out on a possible podium place due to a mistake, Eichberger and Haaser had sold themselves well. The first downhill was promising. "The speed is right, we just have to put it together," said Pfeifer and was convinced that his downhill team would still win races over the course of the season. The Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who finished eleventh, fared better in his first downhill race after his long injury break.

The postponed super-G will follow on Friday in Colorado.