SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (AP) — Franjo von Allmen won gold in the downhill at the Alpine skiing world championships on Sunday as the Swiss team swept the men’s speed events.
Competing in his first worlds, the 23-year-old Von Allmen crowned his meteoric rise in the sport by winning the marquee event of the championships, two days after star teammate Marco Odermatt won gold in the super-G where he placed 12th.
“It sounds crazy, I just try to put the emotions in the right place, but it feels amazing,” Von Allmen said. “I had no pressure, nothing to lose, just trying to do my best performance.”
Von Allmen beat silver medalist Vincent Kriechmayr by 0.24 seconds. The Austrian won the world title in both downhill and super-G four years ago.
His Swiss teammate Alexis Monney was 0.31 behind in third to take the bronze, while defending champion Odermatt was fifth.
“After the super-G, I really thought ‘now I should attack, I have nothing to lose.’ I went full risk and it was on the limit but it worked,” Von Allmen said.
Switzerland has dominated the downhill on the World Cup circuit this season, with four wins and five second places from five events, and Von Allmen said sharing the podium with Monney on Sunday underlined the strength of the Swiss team.
“Marco dominated the super-G, today two others are on the podium, that makes a cool atmosphere in the team,” Von Allmen said. “One day it’s Marco, one day it’s me or Monney or (Stefan) Rogentin, all the athletes can perform really well and that pushes each other a lot.”
Von Allmen has yet to win a downhill on the World Cup circuit but finished runner-up three times this season and won a super-G in Wengen.
Von Allmen, who is a trained carpenter and still works on construction sites in the offseason, saw his skiing career teeter on the brink at age 17 when his father died and he lacked the financial means to continue.
Von Allmen set up a crowd-funding project that gathered a reported 16,000 Swiss francs ($17,600). He made the national C team the following year and next won three silver medals, including one in downhill, at the 2022 junior world championships in Canada.
Vitus Luond, a former World Cup skier who is a long-term coach with the Swiss team, said Von Allmen’s rise has been “incredible.”
“I think he doesn’t realise it,” Luond said. “He was in my training group at a very young age and I could see he had a huge potential. But that he can deliver so soon at such a high level, week after week, that’s incredible.”
Racing in partly cloudy conditions and with temperatures slightly higher than during the three training runs earlier this week, Von Allmen was not clean in the first part and his skis rattled over the bumps.
Reaching a top speed of over 121 kph (75 mph), Von Allmen mastered two spectacular jumps where racers soared up to 45 meters (49 yards).
Von Allmen made the V-sign and pretended to bite his nails when he sat in the leader seat, but no racer came close to beating his time, not even Odermatt, who started a few minutes later.
“A good run in some parts, but I didn’t manage to bring a good clean run from top to the bottom. I had two, three mistakes, and like this you cannot win the downhill world championship,” said the three-time overall World Cup champion, who was 0.66 behind.
“We have a good team spirit, we have fun together, we help each other. They were there for me on Friday to celebrate with me, now I will be there to celebrate with them,” Odermatt added.
Italian veteran Dominik Paris was 0.45 behind in fourth, and Bryce Bennett was the best American finisher in 10th.
The marquee event of the worlds was attended by 22,500 spectators, with 15,000 in the sold-out stands around the finish area.
Several standouts missed the race due to injury, most notably former overall World Cup champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway and French speed specialist Cyprien Sarrazin.
The next event at the worlds is the new women’s team combined, in which one racer competes in the downhill and a teammate races the slalom run with both times to be added, that is scheduled for Tuesday.
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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
