Dominik Paris Claims 25th World Cup Victory in Kvitfjell Downhill Season Finale

Dominik Paris of Italy won the final men's downhill of the 2025/2026 World Cup season in Kvitfjell, Norway on Saturday, claiming his 25th career World Cup victory with a time of 1:45.37 on the Olympiabakken course. The 36-year-old from South Tyrol finished 0.19 seconds ahead of Swiss Olympic champion Franjo von Allmen, with Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr taking third place, 0.60 seconds off the pace. The result moved Paris up to third place in the final downhill World Cup standings, behind season title winner Marco Odermatt and von Allmen. According to Rai News, the victory was also Paris's seventh on the Kvitfjell track, his fifth in the downhill discipline there.

Odermatt secures crystal globe despite finishing seventh Marco Odermatt, who had already mathematically secured the small crystal globe as the season's best downhill racer before Saturday's race, finished seventh in Kvitfjell, 0.92 seconds behind Paris. The Swiss skier's title in the discipline standings was therefore confirmed regardless of the final race outcome. Von Allmen's second-place finish on the day secured him the runner-up position in the downhill standings for the season. Kriechmayr's podium finish also had consequences further down the standings: according to Der Tagesspiegel, both Paris and Kriechmayr moved past Italian Giovanni Franzoni in the final discipline rankings. The race thus reshuffled the lower positions of the downhill standings on the final day of competition.

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No German starters as DSV men endure disappointing winter No German athletes competed in the downhill final, as the DSV men failed to place any racer inside the top 25 in the downhill discipline standings, which is the qualification threshold for the season-ending finals. Der Tagesspiegel reported that a recent injury to Luis Vogt compounded what was already described as a very disappointing downhill winter for the German squad. Simon Jocher was set to represent Germany in the super-G event on Sunday. The absence of German competitors underlined the gap that opened up between the DSV speed specialists and the leading nations — Switzerland, Austria, and Italy — during the 2025/2026 season.

Paris's career milestone on a historic Olympic course The Olympiabakken track in Kvitfjell hosted the speed disciplines of the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games, giving Saturday's race an added historical dimension. The Kvitfjell resort in Norway was built specifically to host the downhill and super-G events at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics. The Olympiabakken course has since become a regular and well-regarded stop on the World Cup calendar. Dominik Paris, born April 14, 1989, in South Tyrol, is a specialist in speed events and was the 2019 super-G world champion at Åre, Sweden, according to his Wikipedia entry. Web search results show Paris had previously won on the Kvitfjell course, including victories in March 2025. Paris, who competes representing the Carabinieri sports group, will turn 37 on April 14, making Saturday's win one of the later career victories recorded by a top-level downhill racer. 25 (World Cup victories) — career wins for Dominik Paris after Kvitfjell Von Allmen, born July 24, 2001, is nearly 25 years Paris's junior, and his three gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics — in downhill, super-G, and team combined — had already established him as the dominant speed skier of his generation entering the finals. Kriechmayr, the 2021 world champion in both super-G and downhill, added another podium to a career that also includes a silver medal in team combined at the 2026 Winter Olympics, according to his Wikipedia entry.