Ski Racing World Cup Results Downhill 2012-13

Extremely windy conditions meant a shortened course on the Olympiabakken slope at Kvitfjell in Norway, and it was 28 year-old French racer Adrian Theaux who made the most of the tricky conditions to take the 2nd World Cup downhill victory of his career. Local favourite Aksel Lund Svindal extended his lead at the top of the downhill standings by finishing 2nd, whilst Klaus Kroell completed the podium with a hard-fought third place.

Italian ski racer Christof Innerhofer made it 4 Italian World Cup downhill victories in a row as he held off Austrians Georg Streitberger, Klaus Kroell and Hannes Reichelt to claim victory on the Kandahar slope at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It's now getting really close in the title race with just 38 points separating Aksel Lund Svindal in 1st place to Klaus Kroell in 4th, with Italians Innerhofer and Dominik Paris sandwiched between in 2nd and 3rd.

The 73rd running of the Hannenkamm races saw Italian ski racer Domink Paris became the 1st Italian since Kristian Ghedina in 1998 to win the Hahnenkamm downhill on the Streif slope. An action-packed downhill saw pre-race favourites Klaus Kroell and Aksel Lund Svindal both fail to make the most of their recent form and experience and finish in 6th and 9th. Austrian youngster Max Franz was the early leader with a storming run on the bottom half of the course, and time after time as the next set of skiers came down it looked like his time would be pipped only for him to hang in there with the leading time. Peter Fill was going really well but had an incredible crash - the Italian going into the netting and flipping 360 degrees through the air. Klaus Kroell skied it near perfectly, seemingly in total control and looked gobsmacked to see his final time 0.14 seconds behind his young team mate. Frenchman Johan Clarey, fresh from smashing the 100mph barrier at Wengen seven days ago, was absolutely flying down the Streif and had victory in his grasp after skiing two thirds of the course perfectly, but hurtled into the netting on the dreaded traverse section. Aksel Lund Svindal had a sluggish start but eventually managed to get himself within touching distance of the lead, only 0.14 seconds down on the final split, but was far too low on the traverse section and lost vital tenths of a second. Having seen so many skiers off Franz was maybe thinking this could be his day but eventually lost his lead to the next block of top racers, Italian Dominik Paris nailing the run of his life and finishing a mighty 0.61 seconds ahead of the Austrian. Then Canadian Erik Guay came flying out of the starting hut and managed to hold his speed right the way down, looking like he'd got the lead only to cross the line just 0.13 seconds off the time of Paris. The 50,000 home fans, including celebrity Hahnenkamm fans Arnie Schwarzenegger, Felix Baumgartner, Niki Lauda and George Clooney went mental as in-form Austrian Hannes Reichelt started turning all the intermediate times green and looking like he might end the fans wait for a home victory, but like so many other racers over the year he got the approach into the traverse section slightly wrong and lost time as he was too low down, their was audible groan from the fans finish area as it happened as they knew he'd just lost the speed he need to carry him over the final jump with enough speed. Slovenian Andre Sporn did exactly the same as Reichelt - ahead all of the way apart from right at the end. The race finished in an unusual fashion as Christof Innerhofer had been disciplined for a incident in the training run and was forced to come down as the last man in the race, so instead of heading off to talk to the media assuming that the later skiers would not challenge his time, Paris had to stand and watch and wait for the recently crowned Lauberhorn champion. Innerhofer started the top section well but started to lose time in the mid section where the slope had become choppy, and by the end of the run was nearly two seconds down. So whilst his compatriot Paris had waited longer than normal to be confirmed as the Hahnenkamm champion he would have had no real complaints about the wait - it was worth it! The result means that it is now 7 years since an Austrian last won in Kitzbuhel, Michael Walchhofer being the last skier to send the ten's of thousand's of fans home happy.

French racer Johan Clarey became the 1st man to break the 100mph barrier in a downhill race but could still only finish 5th as Italian Christof Innerhofer became the first Italian since Kristian Ghedina in 1997 to win the Lauberhorn race. The Austrian pair of Klaus Kroell and Hannes Reichelt pushed Innerhofer close as three racers broke the 100mph mark, although surprisingly Innerhofer wasn't one of them ! World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal was going extremely well, even faster than Innerhoffer on the opening time checks, but the Norwegian's ski inexplicably came off just after negotiating the famous Hundschopf jump and he crashed out into the netting. Clarey clocked 100.6mph to surpass the previous downhill record of 98mph, set by Italian Stefan Thanei back in 2005, and the previous record was beaten three more times during the weekend, with Swiss skier Carlo Janka recording 98.66mph (albeit in the downhill part of the super-combined event), then Canada's Benjamin Thomsen with 99.3mph and Austria's Hannes Reichelt recording 99.6mph. It's thought that the hard-packed snow, slightly warmer temperature at race-time and the fantastically clear visibility all combined to produce the perfect conditions for the speed of the course down on the Haneggschuss section.

Race details will appear here.

Race details will appear here.