It’s the sensation of the day in Kitzbühel! Starting with bib 29, Maxence Muzaton achieved the feat of climbing onto the podium of the legendary Austrian downhill. The Frenchman took third place less than four tenths from the Italian Giovanni Franzoni, an impressive winner at only 24 years old ahead of the Swiss Marco Odermatt.
“I have rarely done such good training and I knew that if I didn’t do anything, there was a way to achieve great things,” said the Frenchman at Eurosport. Afterwards I still had a knot in my stomach as I often do, but deep down I wanted to swing and not ask myself any questions. Perhaps it was this mixture that made it smile on my face. »
A first downhill podium at 35
A specialist in speed events, Maxence Muzaton shone among young people, notably winning the title of junior world champion in Super-G in 2010. But he therefore had to wait until he was 35 to sign, this Saturday, January 24, the first podium of his career in World Cup downhill. “A podium here was one of my two biggest dreams (…). I am immensely happy,” he declared to our colleagues at L’Équipe.
Regularly placed in speed events on the circuit, he has so far only had a second place in the combined in Wengen (Switzerland) in 2017. “Experiencing a day like that rewards a lot of effort throughout a career,” he added. The journey was not very linear. »
Dad for a few months
In a relationship with former skier Nastasia Noens, a slalom specialist retired since 2023, Maxence Muzaton shared the birth of her first child on social networks at the end of the summer. To organize himself and make the most of this arrival, he had also chosen not to go on training in South America with his teammates from the French team and had favored a resumption of training in Europe. According to information from Dauphiné Libéré, he had trained with the Swiss team near Zermatt.
The “Streif”, a successful track for him
Although he has not yet managed to reach the podium in Kitzbühel, Maxence Muzaton particularly appreciates the “Streif”. In 2020, then in 2024 when Cyprien Sarrazin achieved the feat of winning, he finished in fifth place. “The excitement and enthusiasm around Kitzbühel remains the same from year to year,” he explained to us a year ago. When we come back here, there is a special atmosphere and we feel it. » “In a race like Kitzbühel, I give myself the mindset of being like a warrior because I have to attack the track,” he told AFP last week.
In 2025, when the French team had experienced several violent falls and a nasty injury for Alexis Pinturault, the skier from La Plagne had already come very close to a first exploit. Leading for a good part of the race, he finally took 7th place. “There’s a little something missing to get something magnificent,” he confided after losing precious tenths at the end of the descent. This Saturday, he managed to perform all the way to the bottom of the track.
And now, the Games?
In search of a major performance since the start of the season (13th in the Beaver Creek descent, 49th and 23rd in the Val Gardena descents, 11th in the Wengen descent), Maxence Muzaton signed the best result of the winter for the Blues for a speed specialist. Before him, Nils Allègre, Nils Alphand and even Matthieu Bailet had scored at least one top 5.
The puzzle therefore begins for the selectors of the French alpine ski team in view of the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games (February 6 to 22). The list of quotas published this week by the International Ski Federation (FIS) recorded the number of French alpine skiers who will travel to Italy and there will only be seven in total, all disciplines combined (compared to ten for example four years ago).
With this podium, Maxence Muzaton made an impression at the best time… But he was not the only one to have performed well. Nils Allègre confirmed his form by finishing fifth at 68 hundredths. Alban Elezi Cannaferina finished twelfth with his bib 55, Charles Gamel-Seigneur fifteenth, Matthieu Bailet eighteenth and Blaise Giezendanner twenty-first.
The Federation could decide to favor regularity and/or lean towards a larger number of selected participants in the technical events. In giant, Léo Anguenot, for example, got on a podium at the beginning of January, where Alexis Pinturault did no better than 11th place this winter.
In slalom, several athletes achieved convincing results: Clément Noël, Paco Rassat and Steven Amiez, three skiers who will also be on the track this Sunday in Kitzbühel. The names of the athletes selected to participate in the Olympic events must be made official this Monday, January 26.
