Italian Peter Fill won the World Cup’s most prestigious event, the Kitzbuehel downhill, yesterday in a race of high drama that saw three favourites crash out.
Fill clocked 1min 52.37sec down the notoriously difficult Streif course, slightly shortened because of high winds and heavy early morning snowfall.
Swiss pair Beat Feuz and Carlo Janka rounded out the podium at 0.37 and 0.65sec respectively.
Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal and Austrians Hannes Reichelt and Georg Streitberger all crashed out in dramatic fashion in the same Hausberg Kompression turn, within view of an estimated 50,000 spectators packed into the picturesque Tyrolean town.
Coming out of the Hausberkante, the course demands everything of man and material as racers fight not only creeping exhaustion but also a 3.5G centrifugal force to change direction into the final descent. Streitberger, a three-time podium finisher in Kitzbuehel, crashed first. No sooner had the helicopter parked up then it was up in the air again, this time to scoop up 2014 winner Reichelt.
Svindal was next, although the in-form Norwegian was at least able to walk away from his spectacular crash in very tricky conditions including a rough track and limited visibility amid sporadic snow flurries.
Each time there was a fall, gasps went up from the crowd that included the likes of former California governor Arnold Scwarzenegger and ex-Formula One driver Nikki Lauda, followed by a deathly minutes-long silence.
Fill picked a steady line down, starting with bib number 14 and hitting speeds in excess of 120km/h, for just his second victory on the World Cup circuit at the age of 33.
Last year’s winner, Kjetil Jansrud of Norway, finished 14th, 1.89sec off the pace, as Norwegian hopes of extending their remarkable winning sequence of 13 victories from 22 races this season came to an abrupt halt.
Organisers took the decision to end the race after 30 runners, meaning 27 competitors missed out on racing what is regarded as the Superbowl of the sport: the Hahnenkamm, or rooster’s comb, the mountain on which the “Streif” piste lies, widely recognised as the toughest course on the demanding World Cup circuit.
Overall World Cup leader Svindal won Friday’s super-G, but second-placed Austrian rival Marcel Hirscher has the opportunity to claw back some points and even leapfrog the Norwegian in Sunday’s slalom, with the two legs scheduled for 0930 and 1230 GMT. Alexis Pinturault led a French podium cleansweep of Friday’s combined event, teammates Victor Muffat-Jeandet and Thomas Mermillod Blondin finishing second and third for a first Tricolor 1-2-3 since 1970.