Giovanni Franzoni set the fastest time in the first Wengen practice session. © APA / CHRISTIAN PETERSEN

Azzurri in the lead: First Wengen get-together over

The first training run in Wengen is over. It's unlikely to be very informative for this weekend's races. Rather, it was a first familiarization with the longest downhill course on the World Cup circuit.

13 January 2026

From: cst

The first training run in Wengen is always a bit of a gamble. Who takes the practice run seriously? Who uses it as a course familiarization exercise? And who actually pushes hard right to the end of the brutally grueling course? It's therefore not unusual for one or two athletes to be way ahead in training, but not quite at that level in the race.

A recent example: Henrik von Appen. The Chilean finished seventh in the first Lauberhorn training run on Tuesday. It's highly doubtful that the South American will achieve a similar result on Saturday.

Three Azzurri at the front – Paris & Co. are holding back.

The situation was different for the stars of the downhill scene. Dominik Paris (25th) and Vincent Kriechmayr (32nd) slowed down considerably in the final section of the course. James Crawford (41st) and Niels Hintermann (45th) only skied the upper section of the course, which is of enormous importance in Wegen due to its flat gliding section and the spectacular Hundschopf, at race pace.

No stress: Dominik Paris took it easier on the lower section of the course than he will on Saturday. © APA / EXPA/JOHANN GRODER

Either way, the time gaps in the first practice session in Wengen were enormous. Giovanni Franzoni was fastest with a time of 2:28.68. The Italian had a 1,45-second (!) lead over Mattia Casse, who finished second. Christoph Innerhofer (+1,62), Romed Baumann, and Daniel Hemetsberger (both +1,68) were already more than a second and a half behind the young Italian.

Two more training runs are scheduled in Wengen on Wednesday and Thursday. It's quite possible that one of them will be cancelled. As of now, nothing is known about this. The race weekend begins on Friday with a Super-G, followed by the classic Lauberhorn downhill on Saturday. The slalom takes place on Sunday.

1. Downhill training in Wengen: The result