John Franzoni comes close to achieving a feat, incredible fourth place
Giovanni Franzoni fourth
It’s Giovanni Franzoni, 23, from Manerba del Garda, a holder of the Fiamme Gialle, who made headlines on the Italian evening. The young Blue goes down and changes the face of the race for the Italian colors. If Marco Odermatt and Cyprien Sarrazin make it clear that also for this year the duel at the top of the world speed will be between them, Franzoni, who started with bib number 39 and finished in fourth place at 60 hundredths from the top and only 13 from the podium, clearly lets it be understood that in the fight among the best there will be also him, who until today had the 22nd place in the super-G of Bormio ’22 as his best result. Beautiful his race in attack and splendid the result that relaunches the actions of the Gardesan, back competitive after the bad injury to the tendons of the right leg, happened to him in the superG of Wengen in 2023. His è a fourth place that is worth a victory.
“I liked the course and I was skiing well – said a very excited Franzoni at the finish line -. Feurstein, who came down before me, è finished third, and I said to myself, “I can do it, I can do it”. I went down aiming for the podium. I had never felt like thatè. Really good and ready. I was also a little bit’ tense, because’ many people came off the track. Two years ago I was close to this kind of result, then the injury and a difficult year like last year, in which nothing was turning. I have been working like crazy for two years and I want to tell everyone who is struggling that it can be done, you just have to work and believe. It’ s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Now I think it will be’ all a bit more downhill. My head is much freer this year, I didn’t have the rush to get back in that screwed me last year-I’ve matured a lot. And now I believe it”.
Today è it was Odermatt who prevailed, taming the curves, snow and bumps of the Birds of Prey, in a very spectacular and difficult super-G that saw many athletes give in to the track. The Helvetic’s time è of 1’09″41, 18 hundredths better than the Frenchman, and 47 ahead of Austrian up-and-comer Lukas Feurstein, class of 2001, who was really good, with bib 24, to get on the podium for the first time. And equally good was Norway’s Fredrik Moeller, with 32, fourth at 60 cents behind the leader, tied with Franzoni. Beat Vincent Kriechmayr, the potential third force who però today accused 81 hundredths from the top and è finished sixth.
Better the’Italy of this superG than the one on Friday, with Dominik Paris 15th at 1″28, still with a few too many mistakes, but with a really determined attitude in the race. Mattia Casse also did well, just one hundredth behind his teammate, certainly not helped by’having started with bib number 1. Pietro Zazzi tried to attack, but made a few mistakes in his trajectory and crossed the finish line 1″79 behind. Christof Innerhofer leaves a lot in the initial stretch, but then contains the gap in 1″88. Both are out of the points zone, as is Benjamin Alliod at 2″66 from the top. Out went Florian Schieder and Nicolò Molteni.
The program ends Sunday with the giant slalom that will kick off at 6 p.m., with the first run live on Rai Sport and Eurosport, while the second will be staged at 9 p.m.