Ski World Cup 2017: Deserved victory

It's not the first time that Beat Feuz has been the Swiss team's best candidate when it comes to winning a downhill race. Despite lengthy injury breaks in recent years, he has fought his way up time and again and had his hand on the trophy, which was only narrowly and unluckily snatched away from him. The last time was in the most important downhill of the World Cup, in January 2017 on the legendary Streif in Kitzbühel, when he had a 0.73-second lead at the last intermediate time and was uncatchable heading into the final stretch. An unfortunate blow hurled him unhappily into the nets and threw him out of the race, otherwise the winner of the Hahnenkamm race would have been Beat Feuz. That such bad luck should be followed by good fortune is merely a matter of time, because the technique, the skiing ability, the physicality and also the right attitude had been there for a long time. It was a fortunate circumstance that this luck should now also come to bear on the supreme discipline of downhill at the World Championships.

It was already clear at the end of last season that Beat Feuz likes the course in St. Moritz. He won both the downhill and the super-G in front of strong competition in March 2016. However, he didn't really succeed in the super-G at the World Championships, but that was probably not Beat Feuz's big goal. On his 30th birthday (February 11, 201) was supposed to be the big day, but fate meant otherwise, because the race organizers decided to cancel the race due to fog and postpone it to the following day. So the race was postponed to February 12, 2017.

Carlo Janka opened the race, but in retrospect this didn't seem to have been the best move, as the weather got better and better as the race went on, the visibility at the top improved and the race got faster and faster. The man from Graubünden will not have been happy with his 28th place, but things didn't fare much better for Manuel Osborne-Paradis, who finished 31st with bib number 2, or Adrien Theaux, who ended up 27th with bib number 3. With Dominik Paris on start number 5, a downhill specialist crossed the finish line who was expected to do well and who immediately took the lead, but compatriot Peter Fill was able to distance him by a few tenths two numbers later. Then Kjetil Jansrud started the race with bib number 9, who was considered to have a great chance of winning the race, as he had already won the silver medal in the Super-G and promptly took the lead at the finish. Patrick Küng delivered a bombshell surprise. No one had expected him, since he had not achieved any brilliant results in the World Cup in the last few months (rank 7-35). So everyone was all the more surprised when the race time lit up green at the finish, he drew level with Jansrud and both held the number 1 spot. Starting in 13th place was the crown favorite Beat Feuz, who probably had the whole world rooting for him. This time it was not only the will to race but also racing luck that stood by him. But above all his uncompromising and courageous choice of line was rewarded in the end with a clear lead of 0.39 seconds. Highly motivated Erik Guay, who had won gold in the Super-G, also started and he almost made the World Cup fairy tale perfect, finishing in second place just behind Feuz. With Hannes Reichel, Max Franz and Matthias Mayer, there were still three Austrians at the top who could still pose a threat to Feuz. Max Franz also made it onto the podium, the other two colleagues had to settle for the back places. For Beat Feuz and Switzerland this day was the crowning of the World Championships with the victory of Beat Feuz in the supreme discipline, for Patrick Küng and Kjetil Jansrud a small drop of bitterness with the ungrateful 4th place. All in all it was a great race with an absolutely deserved winner,