The French Cyprien Sarrazin achieved an exceptional double by winning the second descent of Kitzbühel on Saturday, the day after a first coronation on the legendary Streif, with a lead of almost a second over his competitors including the Swiss Marco Odermatt. At 29, Cyprien Sarrazin becomes the eighth skier to win the Kitzbühel downhill twice in the same weekend and joins legends of the discipline such as the Swiss Beat Feuz (2021), the French Luc Alphand (1995) or the Austrian Karl Schranz (1972).
Perfect from start to finish of the descent, he was the only skier to have descended the entire Streif in less than a minute and 53 seconds on Saturday. He relegated the Swiss Marco Odermatt to 91/100th. The Italian Dominik Paris completes the podium 1 sec 44 from victory. “Today, there really was THE ‘run’. Beyond the victory, there was the run, I took it out from the bottom of my heart. It was incredible, I enjoyed myself from top to bottom low, I felt that there was speed, I cross the line, I turn my head and I see that there is green”, commented Sarrazin on the microphone of Eurosport, after the race.
“A ‘crazy'”
“In the ‘run’, like in Bormio, I felt that I had done something ‘crazy’. I think that he (Odermatt), he made two or three small errors. I didn’t see it, but I was told said it,” added the Frenchman. After his demonstration, Sarrazin climbed onto the tubes of the finish area, arms raised, aware of the enormous performance he had just achieved in the temple of speed, under the eyes of the Swiss Didier Cuche, five-time winner of the Streif, the record.
This is his sixth podium of the winter, his fourth victory after his coronation in downhill in Bormio and in super-G in Wengen. As a result of this incredible weekend in Kitzbühel, Sarrazin is only six points behind Odermatt in the Downhill World Cup rankings, while there are still four events on the program: two at home in Chamonix at the beginning of February, one at Kvitfjell in Norway and that of the finals in Saalbach, Austria.