The competitions for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics have officially begun: today’s morning, in fact, the first timed test of the men’s downhill downhill race was held on the Stelvio slope in Bormio, scheduled for Saturday and which will award the first medals of the Five Circles alpine skiing program.
The best
Among the best, even if today’s times should absolutely be taken with a pinch of salt given that many athletes did not tackle all the passages of the track to their fullest and then got up in the last meters before the finish line, there is the Italian Giovanni Franzoni, second at 16 hundredths of a second from the American Ryan Cochran-Siegle who stopped the clock at 1’56″08.
Third was another of the great favorites not only for a medal, but also for the final victory, the Swiss Marco Odermatt with a gap of 40 hundredths. As for the other Italians, fifth Dominik Paris, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth respectively Mattia Casse, Florian Schieder and Christof Innerhofer.
Injuries
Even though it was only the first timed test, the Stelvio track has already put the athletes to the test and two injuries have occurred: that of the Frenchman Nils Alphand who suffered problems in his seat which, however, do not seem to jeopardize his participation in Saturday’s race, and that of the Norwegian Fredrik Moller who suffered some shoulder problems and was transported to hospital by helicopter for further checks.
The second timed test is scheduled for tomorrow, again at 11.30.
