Paris Wins at Kvitfjell DH

He needed no further motivation. The globes were already won, the season already settled, the records already written into history. But Dominik Paris has never needed motivation beyond the start gate, and when the veteran Italian thundered down the Olympiabakken course on Saturday afternoon to claim the final men's World Cup downhill of the 2025-26 season, he did so with all the authority of a man who had been saving something for exactly this moment.

Final Downhill Results — Kvitfjell, 21 March 2026:

• 1st Dominik Paris (ITA) ·

• 2nd Franjo von Allmen (SUI) +0.19 ·

• 3rd Vincent Kriechmayr (AUT) +0.60 ·

Now a record five-time downhill winner in Kvitfjell, Paris showed his class on the Olympiabakken course as he finished 0.19 seconds ahead of Olympic champion Franjo von Allmen. Austria's Vincent Kriechmayr was 0.60 behind in third. Marco Odermatt, the man whose season has defined 2025-26 in every meaningful sense, could only manage seventh — his worst downhill finish of the entire year — but stood in the Kvitfjell finish area holding something far more valuable than a race result: the overall World Cup crystal globe and the downhill discipline title, both sealed a week ago in Courchevel, both now officially presented in the Norwegian snow.

"It's really a surprise for me that I had such a good run today," Paris admitted after finishing in the top six in all six timed sectors of the course, including recording the fastest time in the first and final sectors. "I know that you have to push from the top to the bottom, and you have to not be too hard on the skis, but searching (for) a good line to bring always the speed."

Paris' last three World Cup victories, and four of his last five, have come in Norway's 1994 Olympic resort.

"It's very cool to race here," he said. "It's a nice course, it's not so easy to be fast, but I figured it out."

The 36-year-old finished precisely third in the Downhill standings for a remarkable seventh time, 13 years after he first did it in 2013.

For much of this winter, Dominik Paris had been a peripheral figure in a narrative dominated by Swiss brilliance and Olympic drama. The veteran proved he can still beat the world's best after a stuttering season that had previously only delivered two World Cup podiums. First win of the campaign, final race of the campaign — Paris saved his very best for the very last moment, as if the sport owed him a clean, unambiguous conclusion.

Slovenian Miha Hrobat, without a World Cup podium all season, set the early pace in bib number one until being replaced at the top of the leaderboard by Switzerland's Alexis Monney. Then came Kriechmayr, then — with a run of decisive quality — Paris. Odermatt made a fast start to his run and appeared set to take the lead until making a late mistake, posting his worst downhill finish of the season.

The 36-year-old from Alto Adige has now won five downhills on this specific course — more than any other man in Kvitfjell history, on a track he has made his own across a decade of World Cup racing. "The whole season was amazing," said Odermatt — but on this particular afternoon, it belonged entirely to Paris.

The context around Saturday's result matters enormously. Odermatt clinched his fifth consecutive overall World Cup title and his third straight downhill crystal globe in Courchevel, France, on 13 March, finishing third in the penultimate downhill of the season as teammate von Allmen skied out, mathematically sealing both titles simultaneously.

"I lost a little bit of time everywhere, especially in the second half of the run," said Odermatt, before reflecting on a Downhill season that saw him win four times and reach the podium in seven of nine races.

"The whole season was amazing," he said. "Every globe has a little bit another story behind it, another road to the globe."

The fifth straight overall title puts him level with Marc Girardelli in second place on the all-time winners list, behind only Marcel Hirscher with eight titles. At 28 years old, Odermatt is already in the company of the greatest accumulator of World Cup season titles the men's circuit has ever produced — and he has years of racing still ahead of him.

"It was very difficult, a very tough race," he said of the Courchevel clincher. "I have never been as tired at the finish. It has been a long season." By the time Saturday's downhill at Kvitfjell was run, the Swiss champion could afford to ski without the weight of the title chase on his shoulders — and perhaps that liberation, paradoxically, contributed to his uncharacteristically subdued result. "The whole season was amazing," Odermatt said at the finish. "Every globe has a little bit another story behind it, another road to the globe. This year was my most consistent downhill season."

The 2025-26 downhill season will be remembered above all else as a demonstration of Swiss depth that the circuit has rarely seen. Odermatt won his 10th career discipline title in the downhill alone , while simultaneously holding or clinching the overall, super-G, and giant slalom discipline titles — a sweep of crystal globes that places him in rarefied historical company.

Yet Saturday's result was a reminder that the Swiss monopoly on downhill podiums, dominant as it has been, always had its challengers. Von Allmen, second on Saturday, claimed Olympic gold in Bormio and has been the outstanding young speed skier of his generation throughout the season. Kriechmayr's third was his second downhill podium of the week after claiming his own piece of history in Courchevel — ending a 23-race Austrian drought in the discipline,  the longest the ÖSV had endured in the modern era. And Paris, first across the line and unbothered by age or expectations, reminded everyone that Italian downhill racing remains a serious force when individuals are in the mood.

Step back and take the full measure of what has been achieved. By the time the Kvitfjell finals weekend concluded, Odermatt had secured four crystal globes: the overall, the downhill, the super-G — his fourth consecutive in that discipline — and with the giant slalom final still to come on Monday, he stands on the brink of sweeping all four disciplines for the third straight year. He finished the Olympic Games with three medals including two silvers and a bronze.

"For me the downhill globe has become the most important thing in my career," Odermatt said in Courchevel. "To win it for a third time in a row, with such a big gap, makes it extra special. To be so consistent in every race and in every condition, to fight for the top spot every week with all that pressure makes me proud."

There is still a GS race to come, still a slalom title to be decided between Atle Lie McGrath and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen on their home mountain in Hafjell. But the dominant narrative of the 2025-26 season is already written, its central character already crowned, his crystal globes already in hand. Dominik Paris won the last downhill of the year for a record fifth time at Kvitfjell. Marco Odermatt won everything else.