Max Franz bolts to the Finish!
The Austrian Max Franz surprisingly won the World Cup Downhill on the Saslong. The 27-year old clocked a time of 1:56.60 winning by only 4/100 ahead of last year’s winner Aksel Lund Svindal and thus celebrating his first ever World Cup victory. Third was the American and Saslong specialist Steven Nyman (+0.41).
Franz’ training runs already hinted at the fact the he is one to contend with. He placed sixth and third and stated after the training runs that he will try to combine the two runs for the actual race. Looks like he pulled it off. This is Austria’s first victory on the Saslong since 2008 when Michael Walchhofer took home the gold.
Second was Norwegian Aksel Lund Svindal who once again showed that he is fully recovered from his injury. He missed the gold due to a few mistakes on the Ciaslat which probably cost him half a second. Just 41/100 behind was Steven Nyman (USA) in 3rd place. He celebrated all his three World Cup wins on the Saslong. Norwegian Kjetil Jansrud came in 12th after capturing all three previous speed events this season.
Expectations of local ski fans were not met. Christof Innerhofer placed best among the Italian skiers and is probably the only one pleased with his performance. He came in 13th with a delay of +0.77 followed by Peter Fill in 22nd (+1.23) just ahead of Dominik Paris (+1.31).
Conditions were once again excellent with temperatures slightly higher than yesterday. As expected, it was a tight race. 19 racers all placed within one second.
