The world champion prevailed on Saturday in the second descent ahead of Wengen lover Beat Feuz (+0.34 seconds), Dominik Paris (0.44) and the high-flyer of the past few weeks, Marco Odermatt (0.46). With Matthias Mayer (5th), Otmar Striedinger (9th), Max Franz (10th) and Daniel Hemetsberger (11th), the ÖSV placed five athletes in the top eleven after 30 runners.
“There was a now-first-right mentality today,” said Kriechmayr after twelfth place the day before on ORF. “I tried to take heart in hand.”
The fact that he was even able to aim for his tenth World Cup victory in the classic was discussed emotionally in advance. Coming from the Corona quarantine, the Upper Austrian arrived late and after the downhill training in the Bernese Oberland. A run – more precisely: a training start – is mandatory according to the rules for the start of a race. However, a jury decision made it possible for Kriechmayr to leave the starting house on Friday morning before the first descent, swing down after a few meters and go on to inspect the course normally.
The next day, Kriechmayr achieved his first win of the season and his second Wengen success after 2019 over a much longer distance and top speeds of up to 150 km/h in 2:26.09 minutes. With the 18th success in a Wengen downhill run, Austria’s ski association expanded its statistical supremacy – “followers” Switzerland held at twelve.
Kriechmayr stole Feuz’s fourth Wengen victory, the Swiss’s solo record success on the traditional route has been postponed. Slight mistakes, such as the Silberhornsprung, were crucial. Yesterday’s winner Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (7th) was also beaten early, the Norwegian botched the entry into the Kernen-S, in which Odermatt also pushed to the limit again, but also didn’t come out completely error-free.
Kriechmayr mastered the criterion better than on Friday, this time also inserted a slimmed-down snow plow version – which proved to be fast. With what is probably the best line of all the top players, the Upper Austrian also made up for some of the deficit that he had torn up on the upper part of the course, which he had not tried.
Source: Nachrichten
