The Austrian, Johann Grugger, brilliantly confirmed his great potential in celebrating his second consecutive victory after beating by 11/100 of a second Italy's veteran Kristian Ghedina. The young champion is now qualified for the World Championships in Bormio.

His team-mate Michael Walchhofer, the reigning downhill World Champion, was also on the podium at the end of the race, coming in 3rd: this was his fifth top-3 finish in six downhill races! This good performance gave him the lead of the downhill World Cup standings.

Hermann Maier was 8th ex equo with Bode Miller, after clocking very fast intermediate times. In spite of the two mistakes in the lower part of the track, where he lost control of his skis, the defending Overall World Cup champion, has good reasons to be optimistic in his approach to the next speed events.

The Santa Caterina racing week was quite tough for the Overall World Cup favourites: none of them was in fact able to reach the podium on the demanding « Deborah Compagnoni » course, where the coming World Championships will take place in less than a month. Anja Paerson, from Sweden, was the best in the Carrera Ski Racing Team / women section, ending her race in 6th position, even after a bad crash in training the previous day.