The third Downhill of the season ended with the third Swiss double podium. 24-year-old Alexis Monney with start number 19 won the Alpine Ski World Cup Downhill in Bormio. He finished 0.24 hundredths ahead of teammate Franjo von Allmen. Canadian Alexander Cameron rounded up the podium in third place 0.79 seconds behind the Swiss.
Monney had already shown his potential two days ago when he set the third-fastest time in the first training session. His previous best World Cup result was 8th place in kitzbühel last season. Now he is not only celebrating his first podium, but also his first victory.
"I don't know how I did it. It's a strange feeling, but cool. Normally it's always difficult to ski here, but today it was so easy. I thought it was possible to get a good result, but I didn't expect such a good result. It's unbelievable. I can't find the right words. It's wonderful to celebrate the double victory with Franjo," Monney said.
Van Allmen claimed his third podium in the Alpine Ski World Cup today, the second one this season.
“It is a tough Downhill, I didn’t expect this, but I am really happy with the result, and also with Monney, it is really cool. This is the second World Cup season for me so I need to stay on the ground, and focused on my goals, for every race. My first training run was really bad. The second one was better and I had a great feeling on the slope," Allmen said.
Alexander Cameron claimed his fourth career Alpine Ski World Cup podium today. The Canadian repeated his podium finish of a year ago in Bormio, where he was third.
"I was trying to push, it was a little bit rougher, a little bit bumpier again today. That was to be expected. I feel good about it. I don’t think there’s much of a secret, it’s just about trying to be over my skis. You don’t feel good necessarily anywhere on the course, but if you keep letting the skis go, you end up being pretty fast, and that’s enabled me to do well," Cameron said.
The Swiss Team is dominating the Alpine Ski World Cup Downhill, after taking three 1-2 podiums in the first three World Cup races in this discipline. They cop with the first four places of the Downhill standings, with Marco Odermatt leading, Franjo Von Allmen second, Justin Murisier third, and Alexis Monney fourth.
In Beaver Creek, Justin Murisier secured his first Alpine World Cup victory by winning the Downhill at Birds of Prey. Marco Odermatt finished second.
Last Saturday, Marco Odermatt won the Saslong Downhill in Val Gardena. He led a 1-2 Swiss podium ahead of teammate Franjo von Allmen.
Today Six Swiss skiers finished in the Top 12.
On the other hand, the Austrian team continues its run of poor results. Vincent Kriechmayr was the best skier from Austria in eighth place, 1.12 seconds behind Monney. Kriechmayr's eighth place is the worst result ever in Bormio for Ski Austria. In the 31 previous Downhill races on the Stelvio, at least one Austrian was always in the Top five and won 15 times.
The Austrian Ski Team only achieved three Top-10 places in the first three Downhills of the season.
In the 2023-2024 winter season, the Austrian Ski Team achieved only one podium place (Vincent Kriechmayr second in Kvitfjell), and in the Downhill standings only Kriechmayr (4th) made it into the Top-10 (Stefan Babinsky was 15th). The 33-year-old is the only skier in the team to have ever won a World Cup Downhill. All these facts make the Austria Ski Downhill Team the weakest Downhill team in almost four decades. You have to look back to the 1987-1988 winter season to find similarly dismal performances by the Austrian Downhill skiers.
Cyprien Sarrazin's serious crash cast a shadow over the downhill race in Bormio on Saturday. The French speed specialist has successfully undergone major surgery following a serious fall during training on the Stelvio slope in Bormio. The operation "went well," the French Ski Federation announced on Saturday morning. Sarrazin will initially remain in an induced coma, the Federation said.
In the afternoon, the French Ski Federation reported that Sarrazin was conscious again: "His condition is stable, he will remain under observation for an undetermined time."
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