Ryan Cochran-Siegle is starting the Olympic season off strong.
The Olympic silver medalist was second in the World Cup downhill at Birds of Prey on Thursday, finishing 0.30 seconds behind reigning overall champion Marco Odermatt of Switzerland. This is the third career World Cup podium for Cochran-Siegle but first in five years.
It’s also the first time since 2014 that a U.S. man has been on the podium at Birds of Prey.
Cochran-Siegle was 10th in the super-G last week at Copper Mountain despite a mistake near the bottom of the course. But there were no such issues at Birds of Prey.
Starting fourth, Cochran-Siegle posted the fastest time of the day on the first section of the course. He lost some speed in the next section, but picked it right back up. He would have the second-fastest time in the third section, third-fastest in the fourth and close with the fastest finish in the field of 64 skiers.
His time of 1:30.14 put him in the lead, 0.39 seconds ahead of Norway’s Adrian Smiseth Sejersted. No one else but Odermatt would get close to topping Cochran-Siegle.
It was Cochran-Siegle’s best finish since winning silver in the super-G at the Beijing Olympics. It was his best World Cup result since December 2020, when he finished second in the downhill at Val Gardena-Groeden, Italy, and then, 10 days later, won the super-G in Bormio, Italy.
Bormio is the site of the men’s Alpine competition at the Milano Cortina Olympics.
Bryce Bennett was the only other U.S. man in the top 30, finishing 28th.
Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Mikaela Shiffrin’s fiancé, finished 11th in his first downhill since a horrific crash in January 2024 left him with severe injuries to his leg and shoulder. The Norwegian later developed sepsis from an infection in his shoulder, and missed all of last season. Last week’s super-G at Copper Mountain was his first World Cup appearance in almost two years.