The China Mail - Hintermann celebrates downhill win at his 'favourite' slope

Hintermann was seventh out of the gate and set a time of 1min 44.32sec to top the podium by 0.08s from Vincent Kriechmayr, with Cameron Alexander third at 0.19s.

Hintermann and Alexander of Canada have fond memories of this slope created for the Lillehammer 1984 Olympic Games after sharing the spoils in a downhill at Kvitfjell two years ago.

"You could say this is my favourite course," said Hintermann, 28.

"It is a lot of fun and they did an amazing job on it. The slope is tough but it's good conditions. It’s really solid and fair," added the man from Zurich who was registering his third career World Cup win.

Marco Odermatt, the overall World Cup winner for the past two seasons, came in seventh, 0.75s adrift.

"I'm very happy with my run, it is an improvement on the last years here, and the skiing was good," said Odermatt.

"There were one or two places where I could have skied a little bit more clean, but that’s OK."

The Swiss star extended his lead for a third straight large crystal globe to 858 points over France's Cyprien Sarrazin.

An injury in training forced Sarrazin to sit out this penultimate downhill of the season.

Odermatt also leads the downhill (by only 42 points from Sarrazin), giant slalom and super-G standings.

The Swiss is in a strong position to become the first man since Austrian Hermann Maier in 2001 to scoop four globes in a season.

Nils Alegre suffered a nasty crash, but after untangling himself from the safety netting the Frenchman skied down the hill, to applause from the crowd.

The men's World Cup circuit was resuming after last Sunday's slalom in Bansko had to be abandoned mid-race due to heavy rain.

The closing downhill of 2023/2024 is at the World Cup finals in Saalbach, Austria, next month.

Before then, the action continues at Kvitfjell on Sunday with a super-G.

W.Cheng--ThChM