Kriechmayr closes Kitzbühel weekend with win

Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr earned his first career victory in Kitzbühel at today’s Audi FIS World Cup super-G race.

For Kriechmayr, it was his first victory of the season and his third podium of the year. Coming down wit bib #5 he bumped Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt out of the leader chairs with a 0.12 advantage. Odermatt would hang on for the second-place finish, taking his first super-G podium of the season.

Third place went to Matthias Mayer, who pulled off the very rare feat of earning three podium places in one weekend in Kitzbühel. Mayer earned a second and third place finish in the two downhills and adds today’s third place podium to his resume.

The Austrians had a strong showing today placing four athletes in the top-10. In the last two seasons, the Austrians and Swiss have had unbelievable success in Kitzbühel with the two nations combining for 10 of the total 15 podium places up for grabs.

With both season super-g season leaders suffering season-ending injuries in the last few weeks in training accidents, today’s race was a test to see who would step up to become the favorite in the discipline. If anything, what was learned was that the rest of the season will be a fight for the small globe as the field is very evenly distributed among the top-10 athletes.

It was an unusual Monday morning start today in Kitzbühel with the entire program being moved back by one day due to inclement weather on Saturday. In the end, the decision proved to be the right one, with sunny skies for yesterday’s downhill, and cloudy, but crisp conditions for today’s super-G.