Paris wins Val Gardena downhill for first victory in more than a year. Kilde finishes second

SELVA DI VAL GARDENA, Italy (AP) — Dominik Paris is back.

The Italian skier dominated a World Cup downhill in Val Gardena on Saturday to claim his first victory in more than a year — and for Italy a first home win there in the discipline in more than 20 years.

The 34-year-old Paris punched the air and smiled broadly after crossing the line almost half a second faster than two-time defending downhill standings leader Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and then faced a lengthy wait in the leader’s chair.

But as more and more skiers crossed slower than him, the outcome grew more likely and Paris’ smile grew broader.

“It was a victory that really means a lot,” Paris said. “I have always struggled on this slope, I made mistakes this time too … the training day and Thursday’s downhill gave me quite a bit of confidence, I understood that I had good margins.

“In past years I overdid this slope, this time I tried to be more relaxed, bring my speed, make the difference on the jumps that are very long here and at the end my time was a bit of a surprise even to me.”

Paris was the only skier to clock under two minutes.

With the 18th World Cup downhill win of his career, Paris moved level with Stephan Eberharter in third place on the all-time list. Only Franz Klammer (25) and Peter Müller (19) have more downhill wins than Paris.

“I will keep this emotion I have at the moment and try to bring it to Bormio,” Paris said, referencing the next speed races of the season. There is a downhill and super-G scheduled for Dec. 28 and 29 on the Stelvio, where he has triumphed seven times.

Most of Paris’ wins came before he tore up his knee in a crash while training in January 2020.

He won three races afterward but his last victory came in Kvitfjell, Norway in March 2022. Since then, Paris had finished on the podium only once. He finished 11th in another downhill in Val Gardena on Thursday as the men’s World Cup speed season finally got underway, but was a paltry 55th in a super-G on Friday.

“I want to share this win with the whole team,” Paris said. “I suffered a lot last year and lost my convictions, beginning the season like this means that my thoughts over the past few months have been the right ones and the decisions made with my staff are going in the right direction.”

A fast and ferocious run on the Saslong course — with a peak speed of 122.7 kph (76.2 mph) — saw Paris finish 0.44 seconds ahead of Kilde, who could only smile wryly and applaud from the winner’s chair.

American skier Bryce Bennett — who won Thursday’s downhill — was third, 0.60 behind Paris.

“You see Dominik now is back where he belongs,” Kilde said. “He’s a great skier and of course he’s been struggling here for some years but when you ski the way he executed today it’s fun to see and it’s really fun for Italians to have a home victory.”

It also broke a sort of taboo for Italy on one of its home courses as the last Italian to win a downhill on the Saslong was Kristian Ghedina in 2001.

It was only the second downhill of the season after speed races in Beaver Creek, Colorado, were canceled a couple of weeks ago. Thursday’s race was rescheduled from the yet-to-be-run Zermatt-Cervinia cross-border event last month.

There are giant slalom races in nearby Alta Badia on Sunday and Monday for a series of five races in five days.

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/skiing