55th Saslong Classic: outsiders stood out in today's training
St. Cristina, 13 December 2022. On Tuesday, the first and only training for the two downhill races on the Saslong took place in Val Gardena/Gröden. Under excellent external conditions, the French athlete Nils Allegre surprisingly set the best time.
Allegre put the ideal conditions of the slope to perfect use and managed to take first place with the high starting number of 53. A look at the statistics makes clear just how surprising Allegre’s achievement is: the 28-year-old has never made it to the podium in the World Cup and has never finished higher than eleventh in his four downhill starts in Val Gardena/Gröden so far.
Just behind Allegre, Italy's Mattia Casse finished in second place, despite a run that was anything but flawless. The "Azzurro" was just five hundredths slower than Allegre. With the Norwegian Markus Nordgaard Fossland and the Italian Federico Simoni, two other rather unknown athletes shared third place. Neither Fossland nor Simoni has ever finished in the points in a World Cup race, and both were just 41 hundredths behind #1 at the finish.
Top favourite Kilde keeps a low profile
While other outsiders, such as the French brothers Nils and Sam Alphand, took front positions, top favourite Aleksander Aamodt Kilde did not show his cards in today’s training. The Norwegian, who is still unbeaten in the downhill races this season, finished the training run in 14th place.
His biggest rival, Marco Odermatt, even had to settle for 56th place. South Tyrol's speed aces were also not among the very fastest in today’s downhill training. Veteran Christof Innerhofer from Gais came in 25th, 1.40 seconds behind; Florian Schieder from Kastelruth lost 1.73 seconds and came in 35th. The powerhouse from Ulten, Dominik Paris, finished right behind Schieder in 37th place.
The first race in Val Gardena takes place on Thursday 15 December. The downhill starts at 12 pm.