At the Alpine Downhill World Cup in the Rocky Mountains, Kira Weidl and Dominic Schweiger came up with pretty respectable results.
Beaver Creek/Lake Lewis – At the Beaver Creek start house, Dominic Schweiger had more than just slope in his sights – and regretfully accepted his good eleventh place in the Downhill World Cup.
“Unfortunately it’s eight o’clock,” said the 30-year-old from Königssee. He missed out on the desired eighth place by 0.15 seconds, thus earning direct qualification for the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
Eleventh on the “Birds of Prey” slope in the US state of Colorado, however, she also achieved half the standard on Saturday. To qualify for the Winter Games, German athletes must finish in the top eight or top 15 of the World Cup season twice.
go one step further
Kira Weidle is already a step ahead. 1, the Sternberg-born racer raced to seventh place at the World Cup in Lake Louise, Canada on Saturday and qualified for Beijing in the second downhill race of the season after disappointing from 10th place the day before. It was a “solid start to the season” with some good points in the bag, she wrote on Instagram.
The World Cup runner-up in the Super-G had hoped for an even better place from the start, but ultimately gambled away a bit. “We were hoping for a little more snow to be even better initially. But one thing’s for sure is always the lottery,” said the 25-year-old.
The only speed specialist on the German Ski Association (DSV) team level for the top spot, however, could not hold a candle to the excellent Sofia Gogia, like all competitors. Italy easily won the second race on Friday.
The 29-year-old, who was last season’s best downhill skier at the World Cup, won 0.84 seconds ahead of American Breezy Johnson, just like the day before. The third place went to Switzerland’s Corinne Sutter (+0.98 s). The Weedel was 1.44 seconds slower. The second German starter, Nadine Kaffer, finished 46th, 4.84 seconds behind.
Norwegian Alexander Aamodt Kilde also celebrated a double victory at Beaver Creek. A day after the breakthrough in the Super-G, the 2020 overall World Cup winner passed Austrian Mathias Meyer by 0.66 seconds to finish second. Switzerland’s Beat Fuse finished third by 1.01 seconds.
Andreas Sander just finished in the top 20. World Cup runner-up from Anipetal was 1.88 seconds slower than winner Kilde. This means “again full attack and a little more straight line attack,” he concluded. World Cup runners-up Romed Baumann finished 23rd and Josef Fürstel 26th.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 211205-99-262924 / 2
