Switzerland Pulls Off Downhill Double-Double

For Switzerland, Saturday’s downhill could not have been any better. On home turf in Crans Montana in front of a packed crowed under crisp blue skies, Lara Gut-Behrami and Corinne Suter finished in first and second place a mere 0.02 seconds apart.

And as icing on the cake, it was the second straight day that Gut-Behrami and Suter finished in the top two positions.

For both athletes the speed weekend was epic on many levels. Suter’s two second-place finishes secured her the downhill globe with just over a month remaining in the season. She became the first Swiss woman to win the downhill globe since Chantal Bournissen in 1991.

For Gut-Behrami the back-toi-back victories silenced the growing critics, who were getting vocal after the Tessin native had failed to break into the top ten in the downhill in the last two years. It was her 26th career World Cup victory.

Like in Friday’s downhill, the Austrians also claimed third place on the day in one of the closest races of this season as Nina Ortlieb finished just 0.05 seconds off of the winning time. Ortlieb’s teammate Stephanie Venier took home third place in yesterday’s downhill.

Tomorrow the Swiss will look to keep their momentum and go for the triple weekend win in the Alpine Combined with Wendy Holdener entering as one of the big favourites. The first run is at 10:30 and the second run will conclude the Crans-Montana weekend at 13:30