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Swiss ski star Marco Odermatt started the World Cup super-G season with a U.S. Thanksgiving win at Copper Mountain on Thursday, while Aleksander Aamodt Kilde reduced fiancée Mikaela Shiffrin to tears by making his comeback after nearly two years out.
Odermatt has already won the opening giant slalom — at Soelden in the Austrian Alps last month — in what is an ominous start to the season by the world's best men's skier leading up to the Milan Cortina Olympic Games in February.
The Colorado course is hosting men's World Cup races for just the second time, after 1975-76, and it was the stage for another strong run by Odermatt, who still needed to make up time in the final section to overhaul Vincent Kriechmayr and win by 0.08 seconds.
It denied Austria a clean sweep, with Raphael Haaser a further 0.05 back in third and Stefan Babinsky in finishing fourth.
"I crossed the finish line and I was like, 'That was not too bad.' I hoped the feeling matched the time," Odermatt said. "So I had a great run from the top to the bottom, I had a good plan in my mind … and happy with my performance."
Odermatt, the defending overall champion, has won the Crystal Globe for the season-long title in super-G for the past three years.
For much of that time, Kilde, the 2020 overall champion and winner of 21 World Cup races, has been on the sidelines because of the effects of injuries sustained in a horrifying downhill crash in January 2024.
WATCH | Odermatt victorious by 8-100ths of a second at Copper Mountain:After winning the season-opening World Cup giant slalom race in Austria, Odermatt won the first super-G race of the season in Copper Mountain, Colo.Nearly 700 days later, Kilde was back racing, and it was all too much for Shiffrin, the U.S. skiing great, who was in the crowd and weeping as he crossed the line 1.25 seconds adrift of Odermatt.
The 33-year-old Kilde wound up tied for 24th place and was given a big hug by the emotional Shiffrin minutes after getting down the hill. She later took a photo of Kilde with Odermatt, who was congratulating the Norwegian on his return to competition.
Kilde underwent surgery for a severe cut and nerve damage in his right calf and two torn ligaments in his shoulder after the crash at the classic Lauberhorn downhill in Wengen. He has since said his leg will never be the same again and that there is limited in movement in his shoulder.
Given that backdrop, it was an encouraging display by Kilde on a course that is well known to most of the speed racers because it's been frequented as a training site by all the top teams in recent years.
"Because we are used to training here every year but never to race, it was kind of special to finally race here," Odermatt said. "But I had a good plan in my mind and I could really [ski] through from the top to the bottom, and I think it's a really super-G slope."
WATCH | Crawford places 16th to pace Canadian team:Toronto's Jack Crawford was the top Canadian, finishing in 16th place in the men's super-G race at Copper Mountain, in Colorado.Six Canadians competed, with Jack Crawford of Toronto leading the way in 16th with a time of 1:08.66. He was followed by Vancouver’s Riley Seger and Calgary’s Jeffrey Read (tied for 42nd, 1:09.67) Brodie Seger of North Vancouver, B.C., (45th, 1:09.75), North Vancouver’s Cam Alexander (52nd, 1:09.92) and Raphael Lessard of Bromont, Que. (55th, 1:09.99).
Thursday was the first of nine super-Gs in a season interrupted by the Olympics. Beaver Creek in the United States hosts the second race next month.
Watch it live on CBCSports.ca and on CBC Gem — visit the CBC Sports broadcast schedule for more details.
It was a 47th World Cup victory for Odermatt, and his 16th in super-G.
According to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, it was Odermatt's 26th podium finish in super-G, tying him for third with Norway's Kjetil Jansrud on the men's all-time list behind Hermann Maier and Aksel Lund Svindal.
WATCH | Full replay coverage of Thursday's super-G:Watch the first men's super-G race of the FIS Alpine World Cup season from Copper Mountain, Colo.