Crans Montana, Mattia Casse books the podium.

Descent, results

Stefan Rogentin looks to keep Switzerland’s winning streak going in this fabulous season. In the first timed run of the Crans Montana downhill, è it was Rogentin himself who set the best time in 2’00″27, 23 hundredths ahead of Austrian Stefan Eichberger and 36 ahead of Mattia Casse, who was in fine form on the Swiss slope. Fourth place for Daniel Hemetsberger, 51 hundredths behind the Swiss, and fifth for Ryan Cochran-Siegle at 57. So many athletes who started over number 30 placed in the top positions of the rankings. Starting with Jeffrey Read, continuing with Lars Roesti, Felix Monsen, Jan Zabystran, a sign that Saturday’s race cannot be considered closed until the end of the downhill runs.

Good 14th time for Brianza’s Nicolò Molteni, 2nd in the European Cup a few days ago on this very slope. Molteni è detached by 87 hundredths from the leader, and è followed by Benjamin Alliod, also good at containing in 91 the hundredths of disadvantage.

Many bigs have però only studied the track, see Franjo Von Allmen, fresh world champion of the specialty, with 26th time, or Alexis Monney, 16th behind Alliod, or Loic Meillard, Marco Odermatt, James Crawford and many others. The same happens to the Azzurri with Christof Innerhofer 21/o at 1″11, Florian Schieder 27/o at 1″41, Matteo Franzoso 32/o at 1″59, Giovanni Franzoni at 2″29 and Dominik Paris at 3″78.

The schedule calls for Friday’s second time trial then Saturday’s downhill and Sunday’s super-G.