Bryce Bennett won the World Cup Downhill in stunning fashion, becoming the first American male alpine skier to do so in two years and also the first to finish in the top five in a long time.
Bennett, a two-time Olympian, won in Val Gardena, Italy, wearing bib number 34. All of the top-ranked skiers are in the first 30.
Bennett overtook reigning World Cup downhill season champion Alexander Aamodt Kilde of Norway by three-hundredths of a second. World champion Marco Odermatt (Switzerland) fell to third place, five-hundredths of a second behind.
Bennett ended the longest U.S. men’s Alpine World Cup win drought since the 1995-2000 hiatus.
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Bennett is also the most recent American to win a World Cup in the same Val Gardena downhill event in December 2021. This was his only previous World Cup podium.
“This place puts me in a good place mentally. It relaxes me,” the 6-foot-7 Bennett told Austrian broadcaster ORF.
Bennett’s best World Cup finish the past two years was seventh place through Thursday. He called the 2022-23 season a “complete disaster” after finishing 35th in the downhill standings.
“I really want to move forward this season,” he said. “I want to advance to Bormio, Wengen, Kitzbühel and Chamonix and have a really competitive run all season long, because if I get the downhill globe, you’ll never see me again. That’s why they take off their boots on planes, on fishing boats, and at the finish in Mexico.”
The last skier to win all World Cup downhill races with a higher starting number was Slovenian Martin Kater, who finished 41st in December 2020.
Between Mikaela Shiffrin’s victory last week and Bennett’s win on Thursday, the United States won the men’s and women’s downhill this season for the first time since 2004 (Lindsay Vonn, Bode Miller).
The men will race a super-G in Val Gardena on Friday and another downhill on Saturday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.