Athletes are ready to battle for the downhill globe

After having completed their two training runs in Courchevel ahead of the downhill race tomorrow, athletes are eager to tackle the track in a race environment. With the men’s and women’s downhill still up for grabs, contenders will be pushing themselves to be crowned king and queen of speed.  

At the beginning of the season, the women’s downhill races were dominated by Sofia Goggia (ITA) as she won the opening three races and then won the downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo (ITA). Unfortunately, the Italian suffered from a massive injury that put her Olympic hopes in jeopardy, but nonetheless, Goggia didn’t give up on her Olympic dream and fought to claim silver at the Olympics in the downhill race. Since returning from the Olympics, she placed 12th and 3rd in the downhill races in Crans Montana (SUI). Sitting only 75 points behind Goggia in the downhill cup standings is Olympic downhill gold medalist, Corinne Suter (SUI). Suter has only one World Cup downhill victory to her name this season, however, has placed in the top-10 in all of the races. In training, Suter placed 2nd and 6th, whilst Goggia placed 10th and 15th.

In tomorrow’s men’s race there will be four athletes challenging for the downhill globe. All of the four have claimed at least one victory so far this season. The current leader of the downhill cup standings is Norwegian, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde after having claimed four World Cup downhill podiums, which included three victories. He sits top of the table, 23 points in front of Beat Feuz (SUI) who has had six downhill podium finishes this season, with one victory. Feuz claimed the Olympic gold in the downhill event. Sitting closely together in 3rd and 4th place are Matthias Mayer (AUT) and Dominik Paris (ITA). With Mayer sitting four points ahead of Paris, it will be interesting to see how both tackle tomorrow’s race. Out of the four, Kilde holds the fastest time in training, however, Ryan Cochran-Siegle (USA) holds the fastest time out of the two trainings and was the only racer to go sub 1:53.

Tomorrow, the men’s downhill race is scheduled to start at 10:00 CET whilst the women’s race is scheduled to start at 11:30 CET.