Haley Cutler lives up to the prediction, Felix Roesle dominates the men’s downhill: SAC’s first speed races in La Parva

A good test at this stage of preparation, on a course taking well over 70 seconds in La Parva, where many national teams are training and where the second South American Cup stop took place today, following the technical events held after mid-August in Ushuaia.

With last weekend’s giant slalom and slalom cancelled, today featured a single training run and downhill race 1 (the second race tomorrow, followed by the super-Gs scheduled for Thursday and Friday), with the women opening the program and Haley Cutler living up to the prediction in a race featuring 21 starters. The American, who had dominated the training run, claimed her fifth victory at the Chilean venue in the South American circuit, following her wins in 2024 and 2025.

However, the 1997-born skier beat Czech Barbora Novakova by just 11 hundredths, with Chilean Matilde Schwencke third at 0”82, ahead of Argentina’s Begue, 1”57 behind the winner, while the second American, Bobbi Jo Griffin, finished fifth, nearly 2” back.

The men’s downhill followed, also without any Italian athletes but with an exceptionally strong start list, as the French team arrived last week in addition to the Canadian and Norwegian teams, although Kilde was not at the start. The winner by a clear margin was Felix Roesle, the German born in 2005 who became junior world champion in the discipline at Tarvisio 2025 and had already won a SAC super-G in La Parva in 2024. He beat Matthieu Bailet by 37 hundredths.

Swede Felix Monsen completed the podium, 1”10 behind Roesle, followed by Jan Zabystran (+ 1”19), then the other Germans, with Maximilian Schwarz fifth at 1”35, Jocher seventh and Brandis eighth, with Frenchman Caillot in between. Behind Argentina’s Gravier, ninth at 1”60, came names such as Giezendanner, Morse and Moeller, while Brodie Seger and Bryce Bennett were much farther back (2”68 and 2”69, respectively).