Von Allmen upstages rivals to win world downhill gold

Von Allmen upstages rivals to win world downhill gold

Franjo von Allmen clinches men's downhill gold

Swiss tyro Franjo Von Allmen outpaced a host of more experienced rivals to clinch gold in the men’s downhill at the World Ski Championships in Saalbach on Sunday.

Von Allmen, 23, timed 1min 40.68sec down the 2.9km-long Schneekristall course as teammate and defending champion Marco Odermatt, winner of Friday’s super-G, finished fifth.

Austria’s Vincent Kriechmayr, the 2021 world champion, claimed silver at 0.24sec, with another Swiss racer, Alexis Monney, rounding out the podium a further seven-hundredths adrift.

"I wasn't feeling nervous at the start, put all the risk in, run on the limit -- it turned out really well," said Von Allmen.

"I tried to handle the pressure, there was nothing to lose, just do my best performance."

Turning to the Swiss team, Von Allmen added: "One day it's Marco the leader, one day me or Monney, we all pushed each other."

Von Allmen, who says he lives to the motto of "Rock'n'roll and enjoy!" and is widely described by his teammates as "crazy", is a world junior silver medallist in both speed events and the combined, and has slowly made a mark for himself on the World Cup circuit.

He has finished inside the top 10 in his last seven World Cup races, with five podium finishes to his name, including second places in the downhills in Italy at Val Gardena and Bormio in December. They were topped in Wengen last month when he won the vaunted super-G on home snow.

In partly cloudy conditions in Saalbach, with temperatures around 4C (39F), Von Allmen showed a finesse beyond his years as he negotiated the tricky course comprising 35 gates and a 912-metre vertical drop.

- Pedal to the floor -

Hitting speeds of 140km/h, the Swiss skier tackled three jumps of up to 40 metres with aplomb, cascading out of the heavy landings into a sleek traverse of the snaking terrain.

Flying over the rollers, all the while battling crushing centrifugal forces, the partisan 15,000 crowd groaned as his first intermediate time was green, meaning he was faster than home favourite Kriechmayr.

Von Allmen kept his foot firmly on the pedal and held his nerve right through to the finish line, punching the air in delight with a clenched fist as he saw his time, later pretending to bite his nails in nervous anticipation as the rest of the 56-strong field made their own descents.

Odermatt’s bid for a fourth world gold went up in smoke after a slight mistake transitioning through one of the sweeping turns two-thirds down the course meant he lost valuable tenths of a second.

He was 0.66sec off his teammate’s pace, just behind Italian veteran Dominik Paris, in fourth at 0.45sec.

Odermatt had delivered a masterclass to claim victory in the super-G here, but his aim of emulating Kriechmayr's speed double at the 2021 worlds in Cortina d'Ampezzo came to nothing.

"Obviously I'm not perfectly happy, it was a good run in some parts, but not clean from the top to the bottom," Odermatt said.

"I had two or three mistakes, and like this you cannot win a downhill at the world champs."

Kriechmayr’s silver was just recompense after tweaking his right knee in the downhill in Wengen last month, raising fears from his home fans that he might even miss these championships.

But the 33-year-old ran effective stress tests on the knee in training and showed all his nous to claim another podium finish.

Norway’s Adrian Smiseth Sejersted, who grabbed a surprise bronze in the super-G, backed that up with a very creditable sixth place as five Swiss finished in the top 12.

lp/nr

Originally published as Von Allmen upstages rivals to win world downhill gold