Swiss ski star Marco Odermatt opened the World Cup super-G season with a Thanksgiving win at Copper Mountain on Thursday, while Alexander Amod Kilde brought fiancée Mikaela Shiffrin to tears in her comeback win after nearly two years away.
Odermatt has already won the inaugural giant slalom in Sölden in the Austrian Alps last month – an inauspicious start to the season by the world’s best male skier heading for the Milan Cortina Olympic Games in February.
The Colorado course is hosting a men’s World Cup race for just the second time since 1975–76, and it was the stage for another strong race by Odermatt, who still needed to make up time in the final section to overtake Vincent Kriechmayr and win by 0.08 seconds.
This denied Austria a clean sweep, with Raphael Hauser finishing 0.05 ahead in third and Stefan Babinski fourth.
Reigning overall champion Odermatt has won the Crystal Globe for the season-long title in Super-G for the past three years.
For much of that time, Kilday – the 2020 overall champion and winner of 21 World Cup races – has been on the sidelines due to the effects of injuries sustained in a horrific downhill crash in January 2024.
After nearly 700 days, Kilday was back racing — and it was all too much for America’s skiing great Shiffrin, who was in the crowd and crying as she crossed the line 1.25 seconds behind Odermatt.
Kilday, 33, finished 24th and was given a big hug by an emotional Shiffrin minutes after coming down the hill. He later took a photo of Kilde with Odermatt, who was congratulating the Norwegian on his return to the competition.
Kilde had surgery for a serious cut and nerve damage to his right shin and two torn ligaments in his shoulder after a crash on the classic Lauberhorn downhill in Wengen. He has since said that his leg will never be the same and that he has limited mobility in his shoulder.
Given that background, it was an encouraging performance by Kilday on a course that is well known to most speed racers as it has been frequented as a training venue by all the top teams in recent years.
It was the first of nine super-Gs in the season interrupted by the Olympics. Beaver Creek in the United States is hosting a second race next month.
It was the 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 with Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud for third on the men’s all-time list, behind Hermann Meier and Axel Lund Svindal.
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