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Swiss world champion Franjo von Allmen won the first gold medal of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics, beating Italian favorite and Bormio specialist Dominik Paris in the men’s downhill by fifty hundredths of a second.
The 24-year-old skier, competing in his first Olympic Games, held the top spot on the podium for most of the final at the Stelvio ski center in Bormio on Saturday morning. He finished his race in 1:51.61, reaching a top speed of 83.77 mph in the latter part of his race.
The host country won two medals to complete the podium.
Italian skier Giovanni Franzoni, 24, won a silver medal at his first Winter Olympics, finishing two-tenths of a second behind von Allmen. Paris, a six-time World Cup winner in Bormio, won a bronze medal in its fifth Olympics.
The Americans fell short in Milan Cortina’s first medal event.
Kyle Negomir finished in the top 10 in his first Olympic appearance, three-time Olympians Bryce Bennett and Ryan Cochran-Siegle finished 13th and 18th, respectively; and Sam Morse, competing in the Olympics for the first time, finished 19th.
Team USA will have another opportunity to medal Saturday in the women’s cross-country skiathlon, women’s 3,000-meter speed skating, women’s normal ski jumping and men’s Big Air snowboard final.
