Franzoni wins on the Streif: just missed the course record

DThe starting order in a ski race has recently created unusual challenges. The best downhill skiers in the world no longer start late in the race as they used to, but are evenly distributed among the first 20 starters. This is supposed to bring more excitement and a more interesting television broadcast, but: It has significant psychological consequences for the drivers. This was seen on Saturday in Kitzbühel with Giovanni Franzoni.

The 24-year-old threw himself onto the Streif on Saturday with start number two and the ski world held its breath for 1:52:31 minutes. A special time, just 73 hundredths of a second slower than the all-time course record set by the Austrian Fritz Strobl in 1997. He sat at the finish line and breathed a brief sigh of relief. Like so many other former racers, Strobl had also recognized with his expert eye: As brilliantly as Franzoni had mastered the steep slope, as elegantly as he had sneaked through the hanging traverse, as close as he had come to perfection – who else could beat him?

The one answer to this question became clear a little later: nobody. The Hahnenkamm winner of 2026 comes from Italy and had never won a downhill race in the World Cup before. Many came dangerously close to him and because of his low starting number, Giovanni Franzoni had to tremble and fear for a long time this Saturday before he was allowed to celebrate.

This race, which Franzoni spent at the finish in the leader’s padded chair, must have felt forever long. Time and time again, his competitors outdid him in the split times; in flat light in Kitzbühel the conditions were equally difficult for everyone. This also gave runners who started later the opportunity to get close to the best time. Everyone particularly looked at number twelve.

The descent in Kitzbühel turns into a bit of a curse for Marco Odermatt

This was worn by Marco Odermatt, Friday’s Super-G winner, who is favorite in every race after many years of dominance in three of four World Cup disciplines. But Kitzbühel Saturday is increasingly becoming a bit of a curse for him: Odermatt has never won the Streif, and he is missing the golden chamois from his illustrious trophy collection. This time he mastered the route again outstandingly, at the same level as Franzoni, it resulted in an all too close decision, which was against the Swiss by seven hundredths of a second. “It almost hurts even more when the number two appears at the finish after a perfect ride,” said Odermatt later, who had known from the start that “the only thing that would have counted for him was victory.”

But then he congratulated Franzoni, the only skier who can counteract Odermatt’s dominance with a certain amount of regularity this season. The Italian’s remarkably rapid rise began in December in Val Gardena. At the classic in Wengen last week he achieved his first World Cup victory in the Super-G. Now, with the triumph in Kitzbühel, Franzoni, at 24, is already part of the great lineage of Italian downhill skiers – before him, only Kristian Ghedina, Peter Fill and Dominik Paris three times were able to win in Italian colors.

In the end, however, all of these records and all of the praise that we are currently hearing in the World Cup about Franzoni’s perfect technique are just a minor matter. In Kitzbühel, tears ran down his cheek; they were for Matteo, his roommate, who is no longer alive.

Matteo Franzoso died in September as a result of a training fall in Argentina, and his tragic death this year hangs like a shadow over the Italian team – and over Franzoni, his good friend, whose memories have never left him since the accident. “I could already feel the emotions this morning,” said Franzoni: “Last year I was here with Matteo, I drive for him. And I know that he would be very proud of me.”

The memory of Franzoso also reminds us of the incredible risks of skiing that the athletes take on a daily basis. This is traditionally even more the case in Kitzbühel than elsewhere; on Saturday the entire race went without a serious crash – and with a surprise, from a German perspective.

Franzoni had already dressed for his winner’s interviews, the surprisingly third-placed Frenchman Maxence Muzaton was just standing in front of the television camera as Luis Vogt drove across the Streif in the background. The audience in the finish area howled more and more as one split time after another flashed green. Franzoni and Muzaton looked up with a bit of worry – and breathed a sigh of relief: Vogt lost in the lower part of the route, in eighth place he didn’t endanger any podium places, but still got his Olympic ticket at the final opportunity.