AFP/Aspen, USA


Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal won Friday’s Alpine Ski World Cup men’s downhill race at Beaver Creek, Colorado, his third consecutive triumph after two Canadian victories last weekend.
Svindal handled the “Birds of Prey” course, the same one used last February for the world championships, in 1min 42.34 seconds for his 28th career World Cup win.
Svindal, who won last week’s downhill and Super-G at Lake Louise, defeated compatriot and training partner Kjetil Jansrud by .30 of a second with Frenchman Guillermo Fayed third, .70 adrift.
“I was well prepared I guess, like Kjetil,” Svindal said. “Our trainings are high quality. Nobody wants to be behind. I was very fast on the top. I knew I had to be faster than him. That was the most important section.”
Jansrud said he was pleased with his run but that Svindal sparkled at the start.
“My run was pretty good,” Jansrud said. “It was tough to ski, one of the toughest race here. It was hard to stay ahead. Aksel did something unbelievable on top of the track.”
After missing most of last season with an Achilles tendon injury suffered in October of last year, Svindal placed sixth in the downhill and Super-G at the world championships.
But the three-race win streak has put Svindal, three weeks shy of his 33rd birthday, atop the early World Cup standings and clearly made him the man to beat in Saturday’s Super-G and Sunday’s giant slalom races.
“I’m very close to being as fast as ever in downhill and super-G,” Svindal said.  
“When you are injured, if you have the chance to recover 100 percent, it’s good for your brain. It gives you some perspective. Being injured give you a chance to go back to basics. It’s all about your mindset.”
Svindal is a five-time world champion who captured the World Cup overall crowns in 2007 and 2009 as well as nine World Cup crowns in various disciplines and an Olympic Super-G gold in 2010 at Vancouver.
Svindal found Beaver Creek faster than in the past and he knows the layout well, having won here in a 2006 super combined, a 2008 downhill and Super-G and a 2013 downhill.
“Beaver Creek is an intense course, very fast, faster than in the past even,” Svindal said. “You need to take risks here. There’s not a lot of room for mistakes. It’s fun, but one (downhill) is enough.”
It was the third career podium for Fayed, who was a runner-up at last year’s Lake Louise downhill and third last January at Kitzbuhel.
“My run was good on the top,” Fayed said. “I made some mistakes. I lost some time in the middle, I got onto the podium thanks to a great bottom part.”