The Albany Gazette - Kilde at the double in super-G win over Odermatt

Norway's Kilde, who had shaken off the effects of flu to edge reigning overall World Cup champion Odermatt by six-hundredths of a second in Saturday's downhill, clocked 1min 10.73sec to nab another win.

With a strong showing on the final section of a tight, technical course he overtook the 1:10.93 that Odermatt had posted, the victory edging him closer to Odermatt in the overall standings.

"It was tricky, quite dark, and there were lots of places where you could do mistakes," said Kilde, who won both races on Beaver Creek's Birds of Prey course last year, too.

"I just tried to keep it going, be smart and also charge down the piste. I tried to go clean."

France's Alexis Pinturault was third, three-tenths of a second behind Kilde.

Kilde, who won both the downhill and super-G World Cup titles last season but had to settle for just a solitary bronze medal in super-G at the Beijing Winter Olympics, notched the seventh World Cup super-G win of his career.

He completed a strong showing on North American slopes, where he won a downhill at Lake Louise last weekend before a runner-up finish to Odermatt in the super-G in the Canadian Rockies.

Odermatt remained atop the overall standings with 420 points to Kilde's 380 as the circuit heads back to Europe.

Men are scheduled for a slalom and giant slalom next weekend at Val d'Isere and the next speed events on the schedule are a super-G and downhill at Val Gardena-Groeden December 16 and 17.

Odermatt was enjoying what's shaping up as a heavyweight duel with Kilde this season.

"It was very fun again," he said. "It was nice weather, a good slope, a very difficult course.

"It was difficult to take all the risks and go all in. (I took) a little bit too less risk probably, but I’m really happy with the podium."

(K.Müller--BBZ)