On Friday evening, the team captains' meeting featured the bib number assignment for Saturday's downhill.

The downhill classic on the Saslong will be opened by Switzerland's Urs Kryenbühl at 11:45 am. The Swiss will be the first of a total of 61 racers to tackle the course. The Norwegian top favorites follow a little later: Kjetil Jansrud is third in line, super-G winner Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who also won the last Val Gardena/Gröden downhill in 2018, will start with bib 7. Immediately behind Kilde, it’s the turn of the current leader in the discipline, Martin Cater from Slovenia, with bib 8.

There are numerous strong contenders also in the second half of the top group including Austria's Matthias Mayer with bib 13, Beat Feuz from Switzerland with 15 and local hero Dominik Paris with 17. Paris is directly followed by the second South Tyrolean starter Christof Innerhofer.

In the fight for the day's victory, however, two racers with a somewhat higher bib are also likely to have a say: the winner of the first downhill training, Jared Goldberg (USA), will start with bib 25th place, while Max Franz from Austria will plunge towards the finish line with bib 27. The third and last South Tyrolean, Florian Schieder from Castelrotto/Kastelruth, starts with number 53. In addition to Travis Ganong, the US team is rounded out by by Ryan Cochran-Siegle starting with bib 12, Bryce Bennett with 16 and Jared Goldberg with 25.

The entire starting list for the downhill is available here.