First gold of Games 'like a movie' for Von Allmen

Swiss Alpine skier Franjo von Allmen was crowned the first champion of the 2026 Winter Olympics as Italians Giovanni Franzoni and Dominik Paris won their nation's first medals in the downhill.

Von Allmen blazed down the iconic Stelvio in a time of one minute 51.61 seconds, 0.20 seconds quicker than fellow 24-year-old Franzoni.

Paris, the veteran on the podium at 36, was half a second slower than Von Allmen as he pipped Swiss great and runaway World Cup leader Marco Odermatt to the bronze medal.

"It feels kind of like a movie, not really real," said Von Allmen.

"I can't tell you what it means to me."

When the last Olympics took place, Von Allmen was yet to make his World Cup debut but he has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top.

He won World Championship gold in 2025 - the youngest man to win the downhill title in 36 years - with that victory coming before he won the first of his four titles on the World Cup circuit.

But it hasn't been any easy run to glory.

At 17, after the sudden death of his father, he struggled to finance his promising ski career.

"My racing career was hanging in the balance," he told Swiss outlet Blick.

He decided to crowdfund, and eventually raised enough money to continue for another season, after which he made the jump on to the Swiss national squad.

He credits training as a carpenter with "shaping him", and has previously spent his summers working on construction sites.

But that will not be necessary now, having become the fifth Swiss Olympic downhill champion since 1948.

Italians impress on home slopes

Swiss skiers had held all three podium positions before the Italians entered the start gate, with Franzoni and Paris knocking off Alexis Monney and then Odermatt with impressive performances in sunny Bormio.

Paris is seen as a king of this course, having won seven World Cup titles across both downhill and the Super-G, and he won a first Olympic medal at his fifth Games.

"Getting the first medal in front of the home crowd, that's really special," he said.

But for the Italians, their medal success comes in what has been an emotionally difficult season, five months after the death of their team-mate Matteo Franzoso in a training crash.

Franzoso suffered a head injury in a collision with a fence in La Parva, Chile, in September.

Last month, after winning World Cup gold at prestigious Kitzbuhel, Franzoni said he had raced with Franzoso "in his mind" after the two had shared a room at the course a year previously.

"To share the podium with Franjo, after [doing so at] the junior world championships [in 2022], he's such a great guy," said Franzoni.

"Also with Domi, I really wanted to share a podium with him. I don't know if he'll continue racing next year but this is the biggest stage to share."

As a junior, Franzoni used to race against Jannik Sinner, who was a standout skier before pursuing tennis.

In fact, Sinner, now a four-time Grand Slam champion, once beat Franzoni in 2009, something he was made aware of after the latter's super-G victory in Wengen earlier this year.

Sinner followed Franzoni on social media and the pair have since struck up a friendship.

"Receiving a message from a champion like him gave me a lot of motivation," said Franzoni after his Kitzbuhel win.

"I thought, 'If he wrote to me, it means I'm doing something right'. It's been something really, really nice for me."