Beat Feuz

	Beat Feuz
	; Beat Feuz, Sochi / Krasnaya Polyana , 2012
nation	Switzerland
birthday	February 11, 1987 (age 34)
place of birth	Schangnau , Switzerland
size	173 cm
Weight	85kg
Career
discipline	Downhill , Super-G , ; giant slalom , combination
society	SC Schangnau
status	active
medal table
winter Olympics
Alpine World Ski Championships
Alpine Ski Junior World Championships
	Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup
Individual World Cup debut	December 10, 2006
Individual World Cup victories	16
Overall World Cup	2nd ( 2011/12 )
Downhill World Cup	1st ( 2017/18 , 2018/19 , 2019/20 , 2020/21 )
Super G World Cup	3rd (2011/12)
Giant Slalom World Cup	34th (2011/12)
Combined World Cup	2nd (2011/12)
	last modified: February 7, 2022

Beat Feuz (born February 11, 1987 in Schangnau ) is a Swiss ski racer . He specializes in the downhill and super-G disciplines and has been a member of the Swiss-Ski national team since 2011 . His greatest successes to date are the downhill world championship title at the 2017 World Ski Championships in St. Moritz, winning the downhill world cup four times in the 2017/18 , 2018/19 , 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons and the gold medal in downhill at the 2022 Winter Olympics .

biography

youth and junior years

Feuz, the son of a farmer, learned to ski in his home town of Schangnau in the rear Emmental . He won his first children's race at the age of seven. In February 1995, one day before his eighth birthday, he broke two heels while jumping at a JO race in Adelboden and was then confined to a wheelchair for three months. In 2002 he won the slalom at the Trofeo Topolino . After leaving school, he completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer .

As a 15-year-old, Feuz competed in his first FIS race in December 2002 , initially competing mainly in the technical disciplines of slalom and giant slalom . The first assignments in the European Cup followed in November 2004. Furthermore, the slalom proved to be his strongest discipline. In this Feuz won the bronze medal at the Junior World Championships 2005 in Bardonecchia . At the end of December 2005 he achieved his first victory in a FIS race, a slalom in Sörenberg . In 2006, Swiss Sports Aid honored him as the best young athlete of the year.

Long injury break

On December 10, 2006, Feuz took part in a World Cup race on the Reiteralm for the first time and placed 33rd in the Super Combined . He increasingly began to compete in downhills and Super-Gs . At the Junior World Championships in 2007 , Feuz proved to be by far the most successful participant: in Zauchensee he won the gold medal in the downhill and in the Super-G, in Flachau he came third in the slalom and eleventh in the giant slalom. He also won the gold medal in the downhill, giant slalom and slalom combination. Feuz was then allowed to take part in the World Cup finals in Lenzerheide and immediately scored his first World Cup points on March 14, 2007 with 14th place in the downhill. Due to his small and then somewhat chubby stature and his speed, he was nicknamed "Kugelblitz" by his teammates.

In September 2007, Feuz tore his cruciate ligament while training on the Theodul glacier in Zermatt and as a result had to miss the entire 2007/08 season. In 2008, Sporthilfe named him Young Athlete of the Year for the second time, something that only cyclist Fabian Cancellara had managed to do before him. In the 2008/09 season, Feuz was not able to contest a single race after suffering another knee injury (bucket handle tear on the meniscus ) on November 28, 2008 during the final training session for the first World Cup downhill run in Lake Louise .

Rise to the top of the world

After an injury break of more than two years, Feuz returned to World Cup action at the beginning of the 2009/10 season . In contrast to his junior days, he now concentrated entirely on the fast downhill and super-G disciplines, where he was initially able to establish himself in the midfield. In January 2010, he finished 12th in the Super Combined at the Lauberhorn races in Wengen , equivalent to his best World Cup result to date.

The 2010/11 season was initially similar, with several placements in midfield. At the end of February 2011, Feuz made it into the top ten for the first time in Kitzbühel and Chamonix . At the 2011 World Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , he finished ninth in the downhill. In the combined downhill he finished second, but then dropped out in the slalom just before the finish and missed a realistic chance of winning a medal. His final breakthrough to the top came on March 11, 2011 with his first World Cup victory when he won the downhill at Olympiabakken in Kvitfjell , followed by a third place in the downhill a day later. At the end of the season he won the Swiss championship title in super combination.

Feuz achieved his first World Cup podium finish in a Super-G on December 3, 2011 with a 3rd place finish at the Birds of Prey in Beaver Creek . The first victory in this discipline followed on December 16th on the Saslong in Val Gardena . At the Lauberhorn races in Wengen on January 13, 2012, he finished second in the super combination for the first time on the podium in this discipline. A day later he won the prestigious Lauberhorn descent .

In the course of the 2011/12 season , a three-way battle for victory in the overall World Cup standings became more and more apparent between Beat Feuz, the Austrian Marcel Hirscher and the Croatian Ivica Kostelić . With a total of four podium finishes, Feuz ranked second behind Kostelić in the combined classification. Since the Croatian then had to take a four-week break due to injury, Feuz now fought a duel with Hirscher. He won the downhill on the Rosa Chutor in Krasnaya Polyana near Sochi and the Super-G in Kvitfjell (at the same time as Klaus Kröll ). He tackled the World Cup final in Schladming , hyped up by the media as a big “ showdown ”, with a lead of 55 points. In the meantime, he expanded this to 135 points on the last descent of the season; in the discipline rating he had to admit defeat to Kröll by 7 points. After Feuz' failure and Hirscher's surprising third place in the last Super-G, the Austrian had the advantage again. In the last giant slalom, Feuz remained without points, while Hirscher (after rank 2 in the first run) won and overtook him with 25 points in the overall ranking. Since Feuz did not do the final slalom, Hirscher was the overall winner.

injury and comeback

After the end of the 2011/12 season, Feuz had a broken bone in his left knee fixed, and during summer training in Chile he suffered cartilage and meniscus damage in the same knee. Feuz did not compete in the opening race of the 2012/13 World Cup season , shortly afterwards he had to seek medical treatment again for an inflammation in his left knee. On November 21, 2012, he announced that he would not be able to race for the entire winter of 2012/13 due to persistent knee problems. He made his comeback on November 30, 2013 at the Lake Louise Super-G, where he placed 30th. A week later he was back in the top ranks in sixth place on the Beaver Creek downhill. As the season progressed, he achieved another top 10 finish.

After almost two and a half years, Feuz clinched another podium on December 5, 2014 when he finished second in the Beaver Creek downhill. He also finished second on January 18, 2015 in the Lauberhorn downhill. Otherwise his results in the World Cup were average. He won the bronze medal in the downhill at the 2015 World Championships in Beaver Creek . An injury hampered his preparation for the 2015/16 season : after an accident at the summer training camp in Chile, Feuz suffered a partial rupture of his Achilles tendon , which had to be treated surgically. As a result, he was unable to train for several weeks and missed the first part of the season. He made his comeback in mid-January 2016 at the Lauberhorn races in Wengen. Just a week later, on January 23, 2016, he was back on the World Cup podium as second in the Hahnenkamm downhill from Kitzbühel. A third place each followed in the downhills from Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Chamonix. He closed the successful comeback season with two victories in St. Moritz (one downhill and one super-G). These were his first victories in more than four years.

World champion and Olympic medalist

In the 2016/17 season , after a somewhat cautious start, Feuz achieved two podium finishes: a third place each in the Super-G in Kitzbühel and in the downhill from Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He demonstrated his improving form on the Hahnenkamm descent in Kitzbühel on January 21, 2017: At the last split he was over seven tenths of a second ahead and seemed to be the sure winner before he chose a wrong line on the Hausberg ridge and drove into the safety nets. However, he was unharmed in this violent fall. Three weeks later, at the 2017 World Championships in St. Moritz , he took over as the favorite with best training times. On February 12, 2017, he achieved the greatest success of his career up to that point by winning the downhill world championship title. After the World Championships, a third place in the downhill from Kvitfjell was added in the World Cup.

Feuz proved to be the most consistent of all downhill specialists in the 2017/18 season and was never classified lower than eighth place. After winning the season opener in Lake Louise, he followed up with wins in Wengen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. At the 2018 Winter Olympics , Feuz was one of the closest favorites in the downhill. In Pyeongchang on February 15, he was beaten by the two Norwegians Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Jansrud and won the bronze medal. Completely unexpectedly, the silver medal in Super-G came a day later, especially since his previous season's results in this discipline had not been outstanding. Feuz tackled the downhill at the World Cup finals in Åre with a lead of 60 points in the discipline classification . As he finished third there, beating his toughest competitor Svindal by one place, he was the winner of the Downhill World Cup – the first Swiss since Didier Cuche in 2011.

Start of the Lauberhorn descent on January 19, 2019

Feuz' downhill results during the 2018/19 season were also characterized by consistency . A sixth place early in the winter at Lake Louise was his worst result. He won at Beaver Creek and finished second and third three times as the winter progressed. Even before the departure of the 2019 World Championships in Åre, which took place on February 9, he was one of the most frequently mentioned favourites. In heavy snowfall he finished fourth and missed a medal by eleven hundredths of a second. He criticized the conduct of the race in view of the poor weather and slope conditions as "not worthy of the World Cup". In the end he was able to defend his title in the downhill World Cup and won the ranking with a 20-point lead over the Italian Dominik Paris .

In the first half of the 2019/20 season , Feuz again fought a head-to-head duel with Paris on the descents and rode at a consistently high level (he was never classified worse than sixth place). By the end of December he won at Beaver Creek, plus a second and two third places. On January 18, he won the Lauberhorn downhill in Wengen for the third time, which only Franz Klammer had managed before him. Before the subsequent Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbühel, Paris was injured in training, which largely relieved the tension in the fight for the downhill World Cup, as Feuz already had a large lead over the rest of the competition. In Kitzbühel and Saalbach-Hinterglemm he finished second. His best result of the season in Super-G was fifth place.

In the 2020/21 season, Feuz won the Hahnenkamm downhill on the Streif in Kitzbühel for the first time on January 22 ; before that he had finished second there four times. Two days later, on January 24th, he also won the second downhill run on the Streif. At the 2021 World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo he won the bronze medal in the downhill. At the end of the 2020/21 season, he won the downhill classification again, as only the second driver after Franz Klammer for the fourth time in a row.

On December 4, 2021, Feuz achieved his 42nd podium finish in a World Cup downhill with third place at Beaver Creek. He surpassed the record previously held jointly by Franz Klammer and Peter Müller and is now the sole record holder. His next major success was victory on the Streif on January 23, 2022. On February 7, 2022, Feuz won his first Olympic gold medal in the downhill at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

personal

Beat Feuz lives with his girlfriend, former Austrian ski racer Katrin Triendl (b. 1987), in Oberperfuss near Innsbruck . The physiotherapist treats him regularly. He is a member of the tennis club in her home town of Oberperfuss and takes part in regional league games in the summer. Feuz and Triendl are parents of two children (* 2018 and 2022).

successes

Olympic games

Sochi 2014 : 13th Downhill, 15th Super Combined, 27th Super G
Pyeongchang 2018 : 2nd Super-G, 3rd Downhill
Beijing 2022 : 1st departure

World Championships

Garmisch-Partenkirchen 2011 : 9th descent
Vail/Beaver Creek 2015 : 3rd Downhill, 14th Alpine Combined
St. Moritz 2017 : 1st Downhill, 12th Super-G
Åre 2019 : 4th Downhill, 18th Super-G
Cortina d'Ampezzo 2021 : 3rd Downhill, 10th Super-G

World Cup Ratings

season	total		Departure		Super G		giant slalom		combination		city events
season	place	Points	place	Points	place	Points	place	Points	place	Points	place	Points
2006/07	118	18	46	18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
2007/08	no results due to injury
2008/09	no results due to injury
2009/10	73	88	41	25	53	3	–	–	18	60	–	–
2010/11	22	363	7.	254	34	33	–	–	14	76	–	–
2011/12	2.	1330	2.	598	3.	368	34	34	2.	300	5.	30
2012/13	no results due to injury
2013/14	50	147	27	78	28	57	–	–	28	12	–	–
2014/15	19	405	7.	306	22	85	–	–	23	14	–	–
2015/16	13.	596	5.	414	12.	182	–	–	–	–	–	–
2016/17	11.	447	4.	259	8th.	187	–	–	43	1	–	–
2017/18	5.	856	1.	682	9.	174	–	–	–	–	–	–
2018/19	6.	722	1.	540	12.	182	–	–	–	–	–	–
2019/20	6.	792	1.	650	11.	142	–	–	–	–	–	–
2020/21	9.	607	1.	486	12.	121	–	–	–	–	–	–

World Cup victories

57 podiums, including 16 wins:

date	location	country	discipline
March 11, 2011	Kvitfjell	Norway	Departure
December 16, 2011	Val Gardena	Italy	Super G
January 14, 2012	wengen	Switzerland	Departure
February 11, 2012	Krasnaya Polyana	Russia	Departure
March 2, 2012	Kvitfjell	Norway	Super G*
March 16, 2016	St. Moritz	Switzerland	Departure
March 17, 2016	St. Moritz	Switzerland	Super G
November 25, 2017	Lake Louise	Canada	Departure
January 13, 2018	wengen	Switzerland	Departure
January 27, 2018	Garmisch-Partenkirchen	Germany	Departure
November 30, 2018	Beaver Creek	USA	Departure
December 7, 2019	Beaver Creek	USA	Departure
January 18, 2020	wengen	Switzerland	Departure
January 22, 2021	Kitzbuehel	Austria	Departure
January 24, 2021	Kitzbuehel	Austria	Departure
January 23, 2022	Kitzbuehel	Austria	Departure

* at the same time as Klaus Kröll

Junior World Championships

Bardonecchia 2005 : 3rd Slalom, 8th Combined, 10th Super-G, 11th Giant Slalom, 35th Downhill
Québec 2006 : 4th Downhill, 4th Super-G, 17th Giant Slalom
Zauchensee/Flachau 2007 : 1st downhill, 1st super-G, 1st combination, 3rd slalom, 11th giant slalom