Bryce Bennett grabs stunning World Cup downhill win
Bryce Bennett delivered a stunning World Cup downhill win, the first for a U.S. male Alpine skier in two years, and his first top-five finish in just as long.
Bennett, a two-time Olympian, won in Val Gardena, Italy, from bib No. 34. The top-ranked skiers all go in the first 30.
Bennett overtook reigning World Cup downhill season champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway by three hundredths of a second. World champion Marco Odermatt of Switzerland was bumped down to third, five hundredths back.
Bennett ended the longest U.S. men's Alpine World Cup victory drought since a gap from 1995 to 2000.
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Bennett was also the most recent American man to win a World Cup, doing so at the same Val Gardena downhill in December 2021. That was his only previous World Cup podium.
"This place just puts me in a good mental place. It relaxes me," the 6-foot-7 Bennett told Austrian broadcaster ORF.
In the last two years, Bennett's best World Cup finish was seventh going into Thursday. He was 35th in last season's downhill standings.
“This season I really want to move it forward,” he said. “I want to move it forward to Bormio, to Wengen, to Kitzbühel, to Chamonix, and just really have competitive runs all season long. Because if I get the downhill globe, you will never see me ever again. I am boots off in the finish, on a plane, fishing boat, Mexico.”
Between Mikaela Shiffrin's win last week and Bennett on Thursday, the U.S. won the season's first men's and women's downhills for the first time since 2004 (Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller).
The men race a super-G in Val Gardena on Friday and another downhill on Saturday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
