America’s Rasmussen Clocks World-Class Winning Downhill Time

Only a week after nearly quitting in despair, Kyle Rasmussen became a World Cup winner for the first time - further enhancing the growing reputation of the U.S. ski team.

“I’m overwhelmed,” the 26-year-old native from Angels Camp, Calif., said Saturday after beating Austrian Werner Franz by eight-hundredths of a second in the Lauberhorn downhill classic at Wengen, Switzerland.

“It’s the most important result of my life.”

On a course slowed by overnight snow, Rasmussen was timed in 2 minutes, 28.11 seconds.

His unexpected victory boosted the U.S. team’s confidence in the last downhill before next week’s World Championships at Sierra Nevada, Spain.

The victory was the first by an American in a World Cup men’s downhill race since AJ Kitt won at Val d’Isere, France, in December 1991. Kitt was 29th Saturday.

The only other American victory on the Lauberhorn course was by Bill Johnson in 1984.

Armin Assinger and Hannes Trinkl completed a 2-3-4 finish for Austria. American Tommy Moe was 11th, duplicating his finish of Friday.

At Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, snowfall and heavy fog forced postponement of a women’s World Cup downhill race to today.

The race is the second consecutive downhill of the World Cup program in Cortina - the final World Cup tests for women skiers before the world championships, scheduled to begin Jan. 30 in Sierra Nevada, Spain.