He came very close to a monumental feat, but his performance will certainly go down in the annals of the Streif. In Kitzbühel, temple of alpine skiing, Johan Clarey achieved a huge thing by taking second place in the downhill on Saturday, behind the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who still deprived him of a first victory in the World Cup, and ahead of American Travis Ganong.
Starting before Kilde, Clarey made an absolutely perfect top run. The Frenchman then resisted the terrible Streif to light green at each intermediate, until the bottom, where he cut the line with the provisional first place. Unfortunately for the 42-year-old Frenchman, who was probably playing his last run in Kitzbühel, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde went through it to offer himself a new prestigious success, his 20th in the World Cup.
This is the 4th podium for the Savoyard in the Austrian Temple, after his 2nd places (already) in 2022 and 2021 and his 3rd place in 2017. “I felt good, I pressed much harder than yesterday (during of the first descent, editor’s note). Seeing green at the finish is the best feeling possible. I’m so happy, I’m on the podium,” raved “Yo” Clarey after the race.
The French downhiller had already been the oldest skier to stand on a World Cup podium since 2021. And at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, he won the silver medal in the downhill at 41, becoming the oldest Olympic medalist in alpine skiing history.
