Kitzbuehel downhill, Dominik Paris sees the glass half full

In the encore downhill race on the Austrian course, victory for Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde

There was anticipation, after finishing fifth in Friday’s run, for Dominik Paris’ race on the Kitzbuehel slopes. The Merano native did not repeat, at least in the final placing, the test of the day before, finishing in 14th place after a mistake compromised his race. The positive note, for the Azzurri colors, came from Mattia Casse, who came close to the podium finishing fourth just 4 hundredths behind American Travis Ganong, third behind Johan Clarey. The race was dominated and won by Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, first over the finish line with a 67-cent advantage over the Frenchman.

After the downhill, Dominik Paris, Mattia Casse and Florian Schieder (extraordinary second on Friday, 12th on Saturday) spoke to the press microphones. Here are the words reported by the FISI website.

“Today I couldn’t be fluid, even on the small road the feelings were very bad, I felt glued. I saved myself in the final part, otherwise I was almost out. There are some good points in this part of the season, you can see I’m still fluid but I struggle when conditions change. Overall I feel better,” Paris said.

“I was happy at the finish, then I saw that Kilde was going to start…I lost the podium on the Hausberg, jumping so much I ended up low and lost the momentum for the final stretch. Before the Worlds there are still two more Super-Gs at home in Cortina. I started January at full speed, I’m doing good results and we have to continue on this path, solid, because the season is still long,” Casse’s words.

Florian Schieder looks optimistically to the future: “It’s always nice to come down here, even though I struggled a little bit to find the race focus. The conditions were really difficult, even the visibility was poor-I had a decent race. I hope to keep it up and improve, giving it my all.”