Kilde fastest in 2nd downhill training session at Olympics

BEIJING (AP) — Aleksander Aamodt Kilde posted the fastest time Friday in the second men’s downhill training session of the Beijing Olympics.

The Norwegian, who leads the World Cup downhill standings, had a time of 1 minute, 43.72 seconds through strong winds as the skiers tested the Rock course for the second time.

Max Franz of Austria was second, 0.06 seconds behind, and Broderick Thompson of Canada was third, 0.20 behind.

The start of Friday’s session was delayed for an hour because of the wind.

Kilde’s main challengers for the gold medal are expected to be Swiss skiers Beat Feuz and Marco Odermatt, the overall World Cup leader. Feuz was almost a second slower than Kilde. Odermatt was more than two seconds off the pace.

Brodie Seger became the first racer not to finish the course after crashing on a turn. The Canadian spun around and slid down the slope, grazing the safety nets, but avoided serious injury.

“I’m feeling lucky. My thumb is a little bit sore but that’s it. I can ski with that,” Seger said. “It was definitely unnerving when I was heading toward the fence sliding.

“I really didn’t want to hit it and get all tangled up in the B net, because I feel like that could have ended a lot worse … So I managed to just steer clear.”

All 56 racers successfully made it down the slope during Thursday’s opening training session. That was the first time that the world’s best skiers got a chance to see the Rock course up close because test events were canceled over the last two years amid the pandemic.

There will be one more training session on Saturday before the men’s downhill opens the Alpine competition the following day.

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