Chasing speed on the Streif: Fritz Strobl’s course record is shaky

His CD with the apt title “Mozart the Mousetrap” also makes direct reference to the Streif, where the 2002 Olympic downhill champion achieved his most emotional successes.

The heart of the Strobl house is of course the huge tiled stove, which extends from the ceiling to the floor detailed route the streak moves. There are also five striking numbers that are burned into the memory of ski fans: 1:51,58.

Advantage Franzoni

Since his victory in 1997 Fritz Strobl, alias Fritz the Cat, holds it Course record on the most famous descent in the world. And since then this brand has been considered untouchable because over the almost three decades more and more directional gates have been installed on the Streif in order to slow down the pace.

This year there is of course a serious risk that Fritz Strobl’s record-breaking oven will be outdated.

“He will be sweating on Saturday because we are so fast this time,” predicted Vincent Kriechmayr. The last Austrian winner on the Streif was stopped in 2023 with a time of 1:56.16 Training sessions Giovanni Franzoni needed for his patrol on Tuesday 1:52,87. And the Italian was far from reaching his limits.

Franzoni (24) was not yet born when Strobl set the Streif record. That may explain why the high-flyer of the winter (victory in the Wengen Super-G) was not aware of the tracks he had followed during his best training time.

Advantage Sinner

“I think we will break the record,” said Franzoni, who grew up with a conscience Jannik Sinner raced was. This day the Gazzetta dello Sport published a list of results from a race in San Sicario in 2010 – when he won, tennis star Sinner was four seconds faster than Giovanni Franzoni, who was the same age.

Advantage ÖSV men

While the newcomer from Lake Garda is only competing in the Hahnenkamm Races for the second time, Vincent Kriechmayr is already one of the Streif warriors. In all these years it has changed But the slopes have never been presented as pleasantly as this year.

“There have been years when I’ve looked at myself and thought, ‘How do I get down there?’ This time it was a real treat. I’m after the steep slope came out with a laugh“, says the veteran.

This good atmosphere ran like a common thread through the red-white-red Alpine team on Tuesday. Responsible for this was next to that Victory from Julia Scheib also the current one Entry list for the Winter Olympics.

Additional starting place at the Olympics

Originally, the men’s team would have had to make do with ten starting places after some nations withdrew ÖSV receives an eleventh starting place – this means that five downhill skiers could now come to Bormio in February.

The ÖSV can currently only dream of a performance density like that of Fritz Strobl’s record run in 1997.

At that time, 7 Austrians ended up in the top 12.