On Thursday, the second downhill training on the Saslong took place in glorious weather. The Norwegian speed aces left the entire competition behind in the dress rehearsal for the classic race on Saturday.

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Kjetil Jansrud’s impressive runs underscored once again that it’s the Norwegians who have to be contended with in the downhill: Kilde set the best time with 2:02.09, while his compatriot Jansrud finished second, 26 hundredths of a second behind. Following the two proven Val Gardena/Gröden specialists, was Max Franz from Austria, another lover of the Saslong, completing the Top 3. The winner of the 2016 downhill lost just over half a second to the best time.

A duo from the strong US squad lined up in fourth and fifth place: the fastest of Wednesday's practice, Jared Goldberg, was fourth, followed by Ryan Cochran-Siegle in fifth place. Somewhat surprisingly, Lars Rösti from Switzerland set the sixth-fastest time, with US boy Bryce Bennett coming in seventh immediately behind. They all kept their gap to Kilde below one second.

No rider from the Italian team was able to really make a mark in the second training session. Matteo Marsaglia was the best "Azzurro" and finished 25th. Christof Innerhofer from Gais came off as 32nd on his 36th birthday. The other two South Tyroleans, Dominik Paris (Ulten) and Florian Schieder (Kastelruth), finished the training run in 38th and 42nd position, respectively.

On Friday, the first race is scheduled in Val Gardena/Gröden - starting at 11:45 am when the world's best speed racers will fight for World Cup points in the Super-G. The downhill classic on the Saslong will take place on Saturday. The start is also at 11:45 a.m.

The complete results list of the second downhill training are available here.