Sander opens the Gran Becca premiere
The second attempt should be successful on Sunday: The German Andreas Sander will be the first to catapult out of the start house at 11.30 a.m. and thus open the first cross-border World Cup downhill.
The Austrian Otmar Striedinger, who achieved the best time in the first (and only) training run with a gate error, has been allocated start number 2. The third racer to tackle the 3810 meter long Gran Becca with an altitude difference of 880 meters will be the first Swiss skier, Stefan Rogentin. The "6", which will open the top group, was drawn by Dominik Paris from Italy at the atmospheric start number draw with hundreds of ski fans at the Matterhorn Plaza in Zermatt. Niels Hintermann from Switzerland – he had the fastest time in training without gate faults – is the racer with bib 8.
Overall World Cup winner Marco Odermatt (Switzerland) starts with the “11”. This means he will compete immediately after the Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr. Downhill World Cup winner Aleksander Aamodt Kilde from Norway has the bib with the number 14.
A total of 68 racers from 17 different nations have registered for this historic downhill race. The Matterhorn Cervino Speed Opening will be broadcast live by various TV channels worldwide, including SRF, RSI and RTS from Switzerland, RAI, ORF and Eurosport.