American Bryce Bennett returned to the rostrum Saturday, two days after incomes his first World Cup win in two years.

Bennett positioned third in a downhill in Val Gardena, Italy, six tenths behind Italian winner Dominik Paris and 16 hundredths behind runner-up Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway.

“Today felt better than on Thursday,” stated Bennett, who gained from bib 34, then was the 18th starter Saturday. “It’s a lot to deal with, and I’ve never been in that position where you ski well in a race, and then you have another opportunity the same week. So to try and get past that mentally and have a good run is, like, a huge win for me.”

Bennett, 31, grew to become the primary U.S. man to make a number of World Cup downhill podiums in a single season since Steven Nyman in 2015-16. And Bennett did it within the first two downhills of the season.

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Bennett got here into Val Gardena with a greatest World Cup end of seventh within the two years since his final win, which was additionally in Val Gardena.

He known as the 2022-23 season “a complete disaster” after putting thirty fifth within the downhill standings.

In two Olympics, his greatest end was sixteenth.

Nyman and fellow World Cup winner Travis Ganong each retired after final season, leaving Bennett because the lone energetic American man who had gained a World Cup downhill.

Paris, 34, earned his first World Cup win since March 2022 and his 18th profession downhill victory, tying retired Austrian Stephan Eberharter for third on the profession males’s listing. The solely males with extra have been Austrian Franz Klammer (25) and Swiss Peter Müller (19).

The males’s Alpine World Cup continues with big slaloms on Sunday and Monday in Alta Badia, Italy.