Ski: Feuz briefly loses the stick at the beginning and remains in second place.

Feuz briefly loses the lever at the beginning and is still in second place.

Despite the 2nd place, Beat Feuz is a winner in Saalbach-Hinterglemm. Because the Emmentaler has extended his advantage in the World Downhill Championship, although after a few seconds he no longer believed in a maximum result.

Vincent Kriechmayr won a Downhill World Cup for the first time this winter at Saalbach-Hinterglemm. Behind the Austrian world champion, Beat Feuz can look forward to another podium in second place. The Emmentaler has extended the lead in the Downhill World Cup. Marco Odermatt shone with fifth place and regained ground over Alexis Pinturault in the World Cup overall.

Feuz was a tenth of a second faster than Austrian Matthias Mayer in third place. Thanks to the 20 more points that Feuz achieved, he extended his advantage over Mayer in the discipline classification to 68 points. Only the downhill race in the Lenzerheide World Cup final remains pending, the fight for the coveted ball has degenerated into a duel.

The fact that Feuz did not win the race was due to his departure. There he had a mishap, as described in the SRF. “I lost the stick, even my little finger came out of the glove. That should not happen ”, he got angry. It was clear to him that it wouldn’t work that way, and he subsequently tried to limit the damage.

Feuz had an advantage in the last race

Feuz accomplished that brilliantly. The longer the race lasted, the closer he got to Kriechmayr. “I had a great feeling in the lower part of the road,” the double winner from Kitzbühel was delighted.

Feuz looks confidently towards the World Cup final. Not because I have a home advantage at Graubünden, but “because the biggest advantage for me is that I can go to the last race with an advantage”. An eighth place is enough for him on March 17, provided Mayer wins.

Opponent Mayer appears to have thrown the gun to the point. “In theory it’s still possible, but basically Beat is to be congratulated,” he said on ORF. “I’ll try everything again, but Beat is an extremely consistent downhill runner. He certainly won’t allow it to be taken away. “

Feuz doesn’t let that dazzle him. “These are the tricks that are starting now. I’m not a math genius, but anything is possible, ”he said in ORF, rejecting premature congratulations.

Historically successful

Beat Feuz could win the little crystal ball in the supreme discipline for the fourth time in a row. Only Austrian Franz Klammer achieved that before him, between 1974 and 1978. Didier Cuche from Neuchâtel also won the discipline four times, but not in a row.

Feuz is also compared to the Legends in another statistic. Thanks to his 40th place on the podium in a downhill World Cup, he is just one podium behind Zurich’s Klammer and Peter Müller.

Odermatt is making up ground

From the Swiss point of view, Marco Odermatt also shone. Nidwaldner achieved the best relegation result of the World Cup with fifth place. Odermatt thus shortened his deficit in the World Cup overall to leader Alexis Pinturault to 165 points.

With the number 1 car, winner Vincent Kriechmayr set a time faster than anyone else could beat. The two-time world champion from Cortina d’Ampezzo said in an interview with ORF with a wink that he wanted to confirm that he was not a world champion by chance. How do you say it so well? If it goes, then it goes! ».