Haaser, Odermatt and von Allmen: GEPA pictures/Thomas Bachun
22-year-old Franjo von Allmen impresses with a rare feat during his first World Cup season: Ranking among the top 25 in the world in the speed events and placing top-5 in super-G and downhill World Cup competitions. Ski Racing Media spoke with the young Swiss racer, who you can follow in the super-G and downhill World Cup Finals in Saalbach, Austria, on March 22 and 24.
You might have noticed the up-and-coming Swiss speed star — either when he captured his first World Cup podium in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in a late-January super-G, during one of his other six top-15 runs, or because of his happy smile. He certainly has a lot to smile about these days.
Amazing season
Ski Racing enjoyed a video chat with von Allmen the day after the Kvitfjell World Cup weekend, where he finished a career-best 5th in the downhill, 21st in super-G, and secured his starting rights in both speed events at the World Cup Finals. In the season standings, he currently ranks 10th in super-G, 17th in downhill and 30th overall.
How has he experienced his first World Cup season?
“It is difficult to describe. In view of everything, it’s really amazing. I have a great time. It’s not always easy. I’ve learned from some stuff, but looking at it overall, it’s a really good season,” von Allmen says.
“My goal was to be in the top 30 in the world at the end of the season. Now, it’s even better. I can go to the Finals, top 25, for sure. It’s really nice that I’ve achieved that. Perfect for me,” he explains and laughs happily.
It typically takes a few seasons to climb up the ladder in the speed disciplines. Why has he succeeded so well in his very first World Cup Season?
Von Allmen chuckles kindly while thinking for a second, then replies: “Difficult to say. We always talk about gathering experiences. It worked out really well for me. I always work on having fun and enjoying the moment. It works pretty well now, so I hope it continues for the next season.”
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Strengths
The young Swiss racer says many things have come together to make him so successful. He thinks it is challenging to specify his strengths but highlights his ability to glide well on the flatter parts and be good at taking risks. He adds:
“I really like it when the snow is hard and a bit aggressive — more on the icy side than on the soft side.”
Hans Knauss, a former Austrian World Cup speed and GS racer, 1998 super-G Olympic silver medalist, and current expert commentator for the Austrian broadcaster ORF, sees von Allmen as a great skiing talent:
“Franjo reminds me of Beat Feuz. Both have something you cannot learn — a tremendous (instinctive) touch when skiing,” Knauss said, according to Blick.ch on January 29.
The outstanding teammate
According to Norwegian ski racing legend Aksel Lund Svindal, von Allmen and the rest of the strong Swiss team also benefit from an extraordinary teammate — Marco Odermatt. Svindal shared his thoughts with Blick.ch at Kvitfjell during the men’s World Cup in mid-February:
“Marco is not only a great skier but also an outstanding team player. I’ve watched him several times, giving valuable advice to his teammates and rooting for them. A young athlete like Franjo von Allmen will grow even faster, thanks to an outstanding team captain like Odermatt. Marco will pave the way for many Swiss skiers toward the top of the world.”
Swiss dominance
Swiss skiers are ranked among the top racers in the world, and many more are on the rise:
Nine Swiss men are currently ranked top 40 in the World Cup downhill standings, followed by eight Frenchmen, five Italians, and five Americans. Austria follows with four, Canada with three, Norway and Germany with two each, and Slovenia and Finland with one racer each among the world’s top 40 male downhill racers.
The Swiss and Austrian teams dominate the top-40 list for the men’s super-G standings, with nine racers each. Six Americans follow, together with five Italians, four Frenchmen, three Canadians, and two Norwegians. Germany and Finland round out the list with one racer each.
Rising stars
In addition to von Allmen, born in 2001, teammate Alexis Monney, born in 2000, is one of the younger Swiss speed racers working his way up. Monney, the 2020 FIS Junior World Ski Champion in downhill, currently ranks 20th in the World Cup downhill standings and is also qualified to race in the downhill Final in Saalbach.
23-year-old Elian Lehto, not Swiss but Finnish and born in 2000, also deserves a quick mention: He ranks 25th in downhill and 39th in super-G. The Finnish speed skier, who placed 11th in both Kitzbühel Hahnenkamm downhills this season, has also qualified for the downhill in the World Cup Finals during his second complete World Cup season.
Past highlights
Even though von Allmen is a new name on the World Cup rankings, he’s already made his mark in the past few seasons.
In the 2022 FIS Junior World Ski Championships in Panorama, Canada, he captured three silver medals in downhill, super-G and the alpine combined.
Last year, in his first complete season in the European Cup, he captured eight top-10 results in the speed events, including a downhill victory. He finished second in the 2023 downhill European Cup behind teammate Marco Kohler. He placed 12th in the super-G European Cup and seventh overall in the European Cup in 2023.
He holds three Swiss National Championship bronze medals in super-G (2023), downhill (2022), and alpine combined (2020).
Von Allmen has 14 World Cup starts and 33 European Cup starts. He raced his first World Cup in Aspen, USA, last March — a downhill where he placed 46th. Only one year later, he has won a podium finish and qualified for the World Cup Finals.
From childhood fun to World Cup results
As with so many top racers, von Allmen’s career started as a young child with the everyday fun on skis at the local hill:
“I learned skiing on my home hill in Boltigen-Jaunpass. We went there often after school, going directly with the bus instead of going home,” he says enthusiastically. He and the other children often spent their afternoons skiing at the home ski area. Afterward, they could ski all the way home.
“When we grew up, we went to the local races. My uncle was my coach for a while, and maybe he pushed me a little bit. We always had a lot of fun skiing,” he recalls.
Von Allmen thinks of his path onward from there as ordinary: “We did all the races, FIS… I think we did what is typical, nothing special.”
After participating in the local competitions until FIS age, von Allmen entered his first FIS event, an Entry League FIS downhill, in October 2017. The three-and-a-half-year older, current teammate Kohler won the race. Who knows if anyone at that race in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, expected the kid with bib 84, finishing 68th, to be the new, hot name on the World Cup tour six years later.
Multiple sports, various interests
As a youngster, von Allmen stayed active through various sports. He highlights having played soccer and that he now does motocross.
“I think it’s important not to do just one thing when you are young but to keep your interest in all sports and all activities,” he says. Staying active with multiple sports has helped him build the overall agility and fitness needed in alpine skiing.
The super-G and downhill specialist also trained and raced giant slalom and slalom for a long time. He started training with the Swiss national team when he was 15-16 years old. During the 2021 season, the same season as when he entered his first European Cup races, he started focusing more on the speed disciplines. “I changed a little bit, matured more on the speed skis,” he says. As he began having more fun and progressing in the speed disciplines, the move to specialize in super-G and downhill followed.
Must stay focused
Few racers seemed to smile more broadly than von Allmen when he stopped and waved to the public in the Kvitfjell finish area after his super-G run on February 18. He knew his first year in the World Cup was a success and he could look forward to racing in the Finals. But not every race or every experience is easy, not even during a successful season.
One example is the first, shorter World Cup downhill in Wengen on January 11. Starting with bib 36, von Allmen was flagged off the course, having to interrupt his run, after racing close to the entire length of the 2950-meter (1.83-mile) long racecourse. His teammate, Kohler, wearing bib 35, had crashed and tore his ACL and meniscus. With the shorter start intervals after the top 30 racers, there was no time to stop von Allmen from starting. After being flagged, von Allmen had to slide down to the finish and be flown by helicopter back up to the start for a rerun. He still smiled and replied positively when asked by an organizer whether he had enough strength left in his legs for another run.
“That was not easy. I flew back to the start because my teammate crashed before me. We had the yellow flag on course. It was not easy to slide past him and watch him getting up. But for me, I was at the point where I needed to concentrate for my race, stay focused,” von Allmen tells Ski Racing. He explains he focused on bringing everything that could be positive into his rerun. Impressively, he finished 14th.
Continued mental strength
The following day, Friday, von Allmen crashed in the super-G race.
However, he still started in the traditional, big event in Swiss Wengen: The Saturday Lauberhorn downhill competition, on the 4270-meter (2.65-mile) long course, the World Cup’s longest. Once again, the World Cup rookie impressed with another 14th-place finish in front of a 30,000-person home crowd.
Only two weeks later, von Allmen stepped up on the World Cup podium for the first time, finishing third in the January 28 Garmisch-Partenkirchen super-G race.
Five weeks
Now, the men’s World Cup speed specialists have a long race break. There are almost five weeks between their last Kvitfjell race and the World Cup Finals’ super-G and downhill competitions.
The all-round racers and the three-discipline racers are staying occupied with technical competitions. But what are the speed specialists doing?
Von Allmen and parts of the Swiss team stayed behind in Kvitfjell for a few days, training and testing equipment in the wintery conditions. After that, plans have been made and adjusted according to training opportunities in Switzerland, von Allmen tells Ski Racing.
He might also go to Verbier, Switzerland, for the European Cup super-G and downhill competitions on March 4-8, “to stay in the race mode,” he says.
“I think it’s really difficult to keep the focus high — or maybe let the focus go and catch it again. We will see how we do it; I’m not sure yet,” von Allmen says about the five-week-long World Cup race break.
Saalbach next
The next significant milestone is the World Cup Finals in Saalbach, Austria, an exciting venue as the 2025 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships will take place on the same race hills.
Von Allmen raced the European Cup super-G and downhill in Saalbach in January 2022. According to the Austrian Ski Federation, the same hill will be used for the World Championships, though with some modifications for the downhill.
How does the Saalbach race hill suit von Allmen?
“Pretty well. My races weren’t that good the year I went there (for the European Cup). But, yes, we will see how the conditions are, the weather, and how everything plays together. I hope it works out,” he says.
Gratefully building his future
Von Allmen doesn’t seem to take anything for granted.
In his February 19 post on his website, the emerging star writes about his performances in Kvitfjell and how “another big dream comes true” when securing his participation in the World Cup Finals. He ends his post with the following words:
“I would also like to thank everyone for their support; I really appreciate it and am aware that this cannot be taken for granted.”
Looking toward next season, he won’t set any goals quite yet: “As for my goals, I’m being really careful for the moment. Finish this season first, then we can look at the next,” he tells Ski Racing.
However, he highlights some training tasks before next season: “I have to work on taking risks and getting safer on the skis so I don’t get injured.”
Still, skiing and training won’t be the only things on his mind this summer. The Swiss ski star likes to stay involved in other activities, to think about something else than ski racing.
Unlike many young racers, von Allmen did not attend a ski academy. Instead, he learned carpentry for four years. He works a bit as a carpenter in the summers, though no longer during the winters.
“In the summer, when I have time, I might work as a carpenter for a few weeks. It would be nice,” the racer from Simmental says.
About the Author: Bente Bjørnsen Sherlock
