Norway's Jansrud clinches World Cup downhill title, wins last race
Kjetil Jansrud clinched the World Cup downhill title Wednesday by winning the last race in the discipline at the season-ending finals.
The 29-year-old Norwegian entered the race with a 20-point lead over Hannes Reichelt of Austria, but did not need it as he attacked the Roc de Fer course aggressively to beat Swiss veteran Didier Defago by 0.24 seconds.
Georg Streitberger of Austria was third, .31 behind Jansrud, who has already won the super-G title. Reichelt was 10th.
Jansrud, the Olympic super-G champion, is also battling for the overall World Cup title with Marcel Hirscher, the giant slalom champion. Hirscher, who did not race in the downhill, leads Jansrud by 64 points.
The women's downhill is later Wednesday.
Jansrud leaned back in triumph and raised both poles in the air after seeing his time on the board. The 37-year-old Defago - the 2010 Olympic champion who is retiring after the finals - smiled and applauded before shaking Jansrud's hand.
Defago, fastest in Tuesday's training, was first down the slope in perfect racing conditions, with clear skies and no wind.
With the pressure on, Reichelt failed to get to within more than .15 seconds of Defago's time, and then gradually slipped further behind on the bottom section.
Jansrud could have raced more conservatively, but with the World Cup title on the line he pushed from the start, and was .11 ahead of Defago at the first split. He increased his speed at the bottom to finish in 1 minute, 40.86 seconds.
That looked under threat from American rival Steven Nyman, who was faster on the first two splits before tailing off to finish fourth, .59 adrift of Jansrud.
Jansrud will look to pile more pressure on Hirscher in Thursday's super-G. There is a team event on Friday before the weekend's slalom and giant slalom races.
The 26-year-old Hirscher is also in contention for the slalom title, but trails German rival Felix Neureuther by 55 points.
In the race for the women's overall World Cup title, defending champion Anna Fenninger of Austria holds a 30-point lead over Tina Maze.