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Bryce Bennett races to victory in Val Gardena
Photo: ALESSANDRO GAROFALO / REUTERS
Bryce Bennett could hardly believe his luck: The US downhill racer drove to victory completely unexpectedly at the World Cup classic in Val Gardena.
Bennett, who had never been on the podium in the World Cup before, also benefited from the failure of top favorite Aleksander Aamodt Kilde in his coup.
"Maybe we celebrated a little too much yesterday," said the Norwegian, who won the Super-G on Friday.
Bennett wanted to "just start crying."
Probably, announced the 29-year-old Californian, "I'll have a beer or two."
DSV driver Simon Jocher also caused a big surprise.
The 25-year-old raced to eighth place and qualified like teammate Josef Ferstl for the Olympic Winter Games.
Top drivers Andreas Sander and Romed Baumann completed the good German team result in eleventh and 18th place.
Ferstl had to go out onto the slopes twice
"I'm super happy, I never expected that, I'm really happy," said Jocher.
Typical Val Gardena: He drove into the top 10 with the high starting number 51 - for the first time in his career.
The World Cup second Sander, on the other hand, was torn.
His best result of the season was definitely "a step forward," he said.
In the end, "clearly the positives" predominated, but: "It just doesn't want to run that smoothly."
Quite different with Jocher, who bravely seized his chance.
He was 0.74 seconds short of the unexpected winner.
Ferstl was only a further hundredth of a second slower, although he had to start the slope twice.
At the first attempt he was flagged after a little more than half of the distance because the Italian Emanuele Buzzi had crashed at the finish.
Dominik Schwaiger took another World Cup point in 30th place.
aha / sid