Italy capped off a dominant weekend at the FIS Alpine World Cup Finals in Kvitfjell with yet another victory, as Dominik Paris led the podium in the men’s Super-G ahead of Vincent Kriechmayr in second and Raphael Haaser in third. The result on Sunday, March 22, secured a clean sweep of the weekend’s speed races for Italy, underlining the team’s strength on one of the World Cup’s most demanding tracks, the Olympiabakken. The course was designed for the 1994 Olympics by Bernhard Russi, who also created the Birds of Prey Course at Beaver Creek.
The race was opened by Austria’s Lukas Feuerstein, who set an early benchmark on the Olympiabakken course with a time of 1:28.78. That mark was quickly eclipsed by Switzerland’s Alexis Monney, who delivered an electric run to take the lead by a commanding 1.21 seconds—a massive margin at this level. His time held firm through a trio of Italian contenders—Christof Innerhofer, Mattia Casse, and Giovanni Franzoni—before Austria’s Haaser surged ahead.
Excelling on a softening surface, Haaser took the lead by 0.28 seconds, later describing the conditions: “It was pretty warm, the snow was slushy. It felt a bit like water skiing, but it was okay.”
While his teammate Marco Schwarz could not improve on that time, his other teammate, Vincent Kriechmayr, found speed on the upper section where others were slower, and carried it all the way to the finish, edging into the lead by 0.31 seconds. For a moment, Austria looked set to lock out the top two positions.
But Paris, fresh off his downhill victory the day before, once again proved why Kvitfjell is one of his most successful venues. The Italian attacked the course with precision and power, ultimately beating Kriechmayr’s time by 0.07 seconds to claim his second Super-G victory of the season. Kriechmayr was left shaking his head and laughing, as he was bumped, like yesterday, further down the podium by a dominant Paris. Remarkably, the Italian had also completed a downhill–Super-G double on the same slope just two weeks earlier. Clearly the Olympiabakken course suits the South Tyrolian ski racer.
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For Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt, the race was a rare off day. The already-crowned Super-G season champion finished a disappointing 19th—his worst result of the campaign. “It’s cool if you can finish off the season with a nice last race,” he said with a smirk. “That was definitely not the case today, so, the emotions are a little bit less.” Despite the result, Odermatt lifted his fourth consecutive Super-G crystal globe, marking his 11th discipline title overall.
Team USA saw Ryan Cochran-Siegle finish 12th, while River Radamus placed 17th. Canada’s Cameron Alexander and James Crawford finished 21st and 25th, respectively.
The result brings the speed events at the World Cup Finals to a close. The circuit now shifts to Hafjell—just outside Lillehammer, host of the 1994 Winter Olympics—where the technical disciplines will begin following a rest day on Monday.
