Austrian skier Kriechmayr wins downhill race in Kitzbuehel

KITZBUEHEL, Austria — Vincent Kriechmayr won Austria’s most storied World Cup race Friday to give the ski-mad nation a reason to celebrate in its otherwise disappointing season so far.

Kriechmayr won the first of two downhills on the classic Streif course and remained the only Austrian skier, male or female, to win a World Cup event this campaign.

“The Streif is a myth, a legend. For an Austrian downhiller the most important race,” said Kriechmayr, who also won two downhills in Italy in December. “To win in Kitzbuehel, it’s just amazing. It’s the most important World Cup race of the season. I tried, I tried everything. I pushed. It was not a perfect run but it was totally on the limit.”

Kriechmayr mastered the demanding course in cloudy conditions as the world champion sped to his 15th career victory, while co-favorites Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Marco Odermatt only narrowly avoided high-speed crashes.

Odermatt, the overall World Cup leader, hurt his left knee in the incident and will sit out the second downhill on Saturday while undergoing further tests, the Swiss ski team said.

Odermatt lost grip about 25 seconds into his run. The defending overall champion regained balance with his right ski high up in the air but almost crashed into the safety netting. He avoided risks for the remainder of his run and finished more than three seconds behind and outside the World Cup points.

Kriechmayr, the only skier not from Norway or Switzerland to win a men’s World Cup race this season, became the third Austrian in the last 15 years to win the Kitzbuehel race, after Hannes Reichelt triumphed in 2014 and Matthias Mayer six years later.

“I have been really fighting. If you look at the results from previous years, I was not the favorite,” Kriechmayr said. “But I wanted to do things better this time. I took a lot of risks. I was not without mistakes but the risks paid off.”