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Host Italy has a new contender in Alpine skiing with the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics three weeks away.
Giovanni Franzoni claimed his first World Cup victory on the famed Lauberhorn course in a super-G Friday — four months after his close friend and former roommate, Matteo Franzoso, died in a crash during preseason training in Chile.
The 24-year-old Franzoni — a former world junior champion in super-G, downhill and Alpine combined — was the first racer on course and took advantage of the No. 1 bib to deliver a near-perfect run.
Reaching a top speed of 140.44 kph, Franzoni finished 0.35 seconds ahead of Stefan Babinsky of Austria and 0.37 ahead of downhill world champion Franjo von Allmen of Switzerland.
Giovanni Franzoni’s winning time of 1:45.19 gave him Friday’s World Cup super-G win in Wengen, Switzerland.
Canada’s Jack Crawford finished 20th with a time of 1:47.65.
Franzoni handled the tricky Canadian Corner and Kernen S sections on the upper portion of the course cleaner than anyone else.
Toronto’s Jack Crawford finished in 1:47.65 to take 20th place Friday at the super-G race in Wengen, Switzerland.
“I made the difference on the turn where I crashed a few years ago,” he said, referring to his season-ending fall in a super-G in 2023 that resulted in thigh surgery.
Swiss overall World Cup leader Marco Odermatt, a four-time winner in Wengen, placed fourth, 0.53 behind.
The top American was Ryan Cochran-Siegle in sixth.
Franzoni also led both downhill training sessions and could be a contender in the classic downhill on Saturday. His previous best World Cup finish was third in a super-G on home snow in Val Gardena last month.
Now Franzoni will be among the leaders for Italy’s team in Bormio, where men’s Alpine skiing will be contested during the Olympics.
“If you had told me that I would be third in Val Gardena and then win here — on the two courses that I’ve had the most trouble on — I wouldn’t have believed it,” Franzoni said.
The opening ceremony for the Games is scheduled for Feb. 6.
“I don’t know about the future, but the present has changed,” Franzoni said. “We always live day by day.”
Marco Schwarz, the Austrian who won the previous super-G in Livigno, Italy, last month, missed the race due to sickness.
Also sitting out this weekend is Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, the Norwegian standout who returned this season after a horrific crash in Wengen two years ago.
“This year,” Kilde said on Instagram this week, “it’s just a little too early.”
