The first of the two speed races of the 54th Saslong Classic has ended with a victory by the big favorite: Norway's Aleksander Aamodt Kilde lived up to the expectations in the super-G and bagged his third consecutive Val Gardena/Gröden triumph.

A year after his historic double victory at the base of the Sassolungo/Langkofel mountain, Kilde once again put in a stellar performance leaving the competition behind him clocking a winning time of 1:25.91 minutes. The 29-year-old powerhouse put down almost flawless run in fantastic conditions and claimed his fourth gold on the Saslong. In total, Kilde climbed to the top of the World Cup podium for the ninth time - just a few weeks after his two first places in the speed events in Beaver Creek, now for the third time in a row.

Behind the outstanding Kilde, two racers from the strong Austrian team completed the top three. Carinthian Matthias Mayer finished second, 22/100 behind, while the winner of the 2019 Val Gardena/Gröden Super-G, Vincent Kriechmayr, was third (+0.27). With downhill co-favorite Beat Feuz and surprise skier Stefan Rogentin, two Swiss ski aces placed fourth and fifth.

Paris shows up, Innerhofer is behind
South Tyrolean Dominik Paris, who finished the race in sixth place, also skied strongly. So far, the athlete from Ulten has only raced better in the Super-G on the Saslong twice before: a 2nd in 2014 and a fifth in 2019. Behind Paris, Austrian Max Franz placed seventh followed by the North American trio consisting of James Crawford (Canada) and the two U.S. skiers Ryan Cochran-Siegle and Travis Ganong in 8th, 9th and 10th place, respectively.

A bit further back placed the other racers of the Italian team. Guglielmo Bosca (21st) and Mattia Casse (23rd) finished in the top-25, while veteran Christof Innerhofer from Gais took 28th place on his 37th birthday.

On Saturday, the downhill classic is the highlight of the Val Gardena/Gröden race week. The race will start at 11:45 am.

The complete results list of the Super-G is available here.