The China Mail - Swiss ace Odermatt romps to Wengen downhill win

Because Wengen was wind lashed the iconic course was shortened and Odermatt won in 1min 33.14sec.

Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr was second 0.79sec off the winning pace while Italy's Giovanni Franzoni came third.

"I knew that on such a short course, I had to show some hunger. Here, every hundredth of a second counts," Odermatt said.

In Friday's super-G Odermatt made a small mistake on the the 'Kernen S' - two right handers separated by a small bridge and paid for it as he finished fourth.

This time he did not let up.

"Knowing that I've been able to ski it like this in recent years helps enormously, because it's a bit crazy to hurtle at 110 kilometres an hour towards a wall," he said.

"The timing is incredibly difficult at this point, and yesterday I may have waited three or four hundredths of a second too long, whereas today it was perfectly timed."

With this 52nd World Cup success, the four-time crystal globe winner swooped to a seventh victory of the winter and made a little more history, a week after winning the neighbouring giant of Adelboden for the fifth consecutive year.

The Swiss leader in the giant slalom, super-G and downhill standings has a 567-point lead in the overall standings over Brazil's Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, who skipped the two speed events but will compete in Sunday's slalom in Wengen.

The race also confirmed the form of 24-year-old Franzoni, who secured his third podium finish of the season.

The Italian said he had hardly slept after his super-G victory the day before.

"I was awake from three to six in the morning because I was so excited," he said. "But given how the weekend started, I was very confident, and when I saw that the downhill had been shortened, my legs thanked me."

C.Smith--ThChM