Aleksander Aamodt Kilde victorious again at Val Gardena

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde continued his love affair with Val Gardena with victory in the Super G on Friday (17 December).

Kilde completed a double on the Saslong 12 months ago, and he made it three Alpine Skiing World Cup wins in a row having secured back-to-back triumphs at Beaver Creek a fortnight ago.

The Norwegian ace was 0.22s quicker than double Olympic champion Matthias Mayer with another Austrian, reigning world champion Vincent Kriechmayr, a further five-hundredths back in third.

Downhill ace Beat Feuz (+0.57s) was fourth ahead of fellow Swiss Stefan Rogentin and Italy's Dominik Paris.

This was Kilde's ninth career World Cup win and shows he is in great shape to win medals at Beijing 2022 having returned from the previous two Olympic Winter Games empty-handed.

Afterwards, the 29-year-old said, "I feel pretty amazing right now, to be honest. It's surreal and unreal and all those words. It's been three fantastic races now, one after the other, and today is one of the days where I follow my plan, skiing is really good, and I can just enjoy it."

Kilde also won the downhill in 2018 with compatriots Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Jansrud scoring multiple wins at Val Gardena in recent years.

When asked to try to explain that Norwegian success, he replied, "We have a really good time here, we just enjoy the snow here. We can ski our fast turns and we can also follow our plan and our plan is pretty good... it's spot on. With everyone pushing and supporting, everything's possible."

Marco Odermatt remains top of the overall World Cup standings despite finishing down in 24th, but his lead over Mayer is down to 63 points.

Kilde is 61 further back in third, and he will aim to move closer to the Swiss - and claim his fifth win on the Saslong - in the downhill on Saturday.