Downhill ski racers get 1st glimpse of the Sun Valley course in training run at World Cup finals
Downhill ski racers get 1st glimpse of the Sun Valley course in training run at World Cup finals
SUN VALLEY, Idaho — American ski racer Bryce Bennett had more on his mind Friday than just learning a new World Cup downhill course.
His wife is due Saturday with their first baby. That also happens to be downhill race day. Bennett's plan is to fly down the redesigned World Cup course called “Challenger” and then fly right home to Truckee, California.
Bennett kept his mind occupied Friday for 1 minute, 26.58 seconds in a training session as he tried to figure out the fastest line down a course that's been described as steep and technical.
“It’s a cool downhill,” said Bennett, who finished 23rd in the training run and 2.29 seconds behind the top time posted by Swiss racer Alexis Monney. “It's super fun.”
Four-time overall World Cup winner Marco Odermatt of Switzerland compared the steep sections of the course to the Birds of Prey run in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
“But a downhill turning like this, I've never skied before," said Odermatt, who has an 83-point lead over Swiss teammate Franjo von Allmen in the downhill standings heading into the final race.
The Sun Valley course runs about about 2,459 meters with plenty of vertical sections to make the heart race. But there are traverses mixed in to mitigate the steep pitches. It's a way to make sure the racers don't get too much speed or air over jumps.
No sense risking injury. Not in the final downhill and super-G of the season. Not with the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics on the horizon.
There hasn't been much time to develop a scouting report, either. A scheduled training session Thursday was canceled because of the weather conditions.
“It will really pull the best up,” explained Tom Johnston, the technical adviser for the course. “We were trying to find ways to make it interesting.”
The setup certainly got the attention of Italian racer Federica Brignone, whose mom, former ski racer Maria Rosa Quario, is expected to be in the stands to watch.
“I felt not in the rhythm — too early or too late on the turns,” recounted Brignone, who has a 16-point lead in the season-long downhill standings over Austria's Cornelia Huetter and a 34-point margin over Italian teammate Sofia Goggia. “But the slope is amazing. The place is amazing and I'm having so much fun.
“It's a lot of pressure, I know.”
Bennett feels pressure, too.
“When you're skiing and inspecting, it's fine. You don't think about it,” Bennett said of the baby possibly arriving on race day. “When you go back to the hotel in the afternoon and you're sitting around, it's like, ‘What am I doing here?’”
The last time the World Cup circuit made a stop at Sun Valley was in 1977. One of the winners that week was Phil Mahre, who held off not only Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark in the slalom but also Mahre’s brother, Steve.
“That was a long, long time ago,” Mahre said with a laugh in a phone interview. “It’s not exactly vivid in my memory. I just remember everything fell together. It was a good day."
Two-time Olympic champion and Idaho native Picabo Street remembered trying to peek under the fence that weekend to catch a glimpse of the racing action.
“I never thought that in my lifetime I would see ski racing go back to Sun Valley," Street said.
Street will be part of the action, too, serving as a commentator for NBC Sports. It’s a little nerve-racking being back at the venue that helped launch her career, one that included nine World Cup wins and a gold medal in the super-G at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.
She’s royalty around these parts, with a run on the mountain named in her honor — Picabo’s Street.
“I was looking at the the course map, and I just kind of zoomed in on it with my fingers and stared at for a little while and I was like, ’Everyone’s going to see the signs,'" said Street, who will have a statue unveiled in her honor Monday. "I kind of had this moment of excitement but nervous at the same time.
“This is so wild for me. It’s emotional.”
Riley Berman was born in the shadow of the mountains of Sun Valley and grew up racing in the area. Now, he's the chief of course for the race.
He played a pivotal role in the layout after learning the tricks of the trade from Johnston, who's traveled all over the world building courses.
“It’s unique. It’s a sprint-style, in-your-face course,” Berman said. “It’s going to be full throttle from the moment they leave the gate."
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