The men's downhill in the 2025 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of eight events. It had been scheduled for nine, but the finals were cancelled due to fresh snow and high winds.[1] Two-time discipline champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway, who failed to repeat last season because he suffered life-threatening injuries on the Lauberhorn downhill course in January 2024, developed a shoulder infection at the surgical site over the summer and needed a second surgery, which caused him to miss the entire season, making defending discipline champion Marco Odermatt of Switzerland an overwhelming favorite to repeat as the season champion.[2] And Odermatt did indeed repeat as champion when the finals were cancelled with him in the discipline lead.
The season was interrupted for the biennial Alpine Skiing World Championships in Saalbach, Austria during 4–16 February 2025.[3] The championship in men's downhill was held on Sunday, 9 February, and was dominated by the Swiss team, with young star Franjo von Allmen winning gold, teammate Alexis Monney taking bronze, and five Swiss skiers finishing in the top 12.[4]
Season summary
Downhill season began in early December 2024 at Beaver Creek (Colorado), USA with Swiss skier Justin Murisier winning his first-ever World Cup race in an upset over his Swiss teammate Marco Odermatt.[5] However, Odermatt bounced back to dominate the next downhill in Val Gardena.[6] In the third downhill, on the Stelvio course in Bormio, Odermatt made a mid race error that pushed him down to fifth, but two of his Swiss teammates (Alexis Monney and 23-year-old Franjo von Allmen) made up for it by taking the top two places, which gave the Swiss the top four places in the discipline standings for the season.[7] Once again, Odermatt bounced back to defeat Von Allmen on home snow in Wengen,[8] but then the Swiss downhill monopoly for the season was finally ended by Canada's James Crawford, with his first World Cup victory, in Kitzbühel, Austria.[9] The final race before the World Championships, scheduled in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, was cancelled when two straight days of fog caused both pre-race training runs to be cancelled, which meant that the downhill could not take place; the race was rescheduled for the first day at Kvitfjell.[10]
In the World Championships, von Allmen and Monney continued their meteoric rise, with von Allmen defeating home star Vincent Kriechmayr for the gold medal and Monney claiming the bronze, with Odermatt fifth.[4] In the first race after worlds, von Allmen led another Swiss sweep on the home snow in Crans Montana, with Odermatt second and Monney third.[11] However, in the first of the last two races before final, the make-up at Kvitfjell, Italy's Dominik Paris beat three Swiss skiers led by Odermatt to capture his fifth win (four in DH) on the course.[12] But the next day, the Swiss, led once again by Von Allmen, and followed by Odermatt and Rogentin, swept the podium.[13] With the win, Von Allmen cut Odermatt's lead for the discipline title to 83 points, meaning that either of them could still win the crystal globe for the discipline at finals.[13]
Finals
The World Cup finals in the discipline were scheduled to take place on Saturday, 22 March 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho, United States.[14] Only the top 25 skiers in the World Cup downhill discipline and the winner of the Junior World Championship in that discipline (Felix Rösle of Germany), plus any skiers who have scored at least 500 points in the World Cup overall classification for the season, were eligible to compete in the final, and only the top 15 would earn World Cup points. The only 500+-point skier who chose to enter was Loïc Meillard of Switzerland, and two qualified skiers (Cameron Alexander of Canada and Mattia Casse of Italy) did not enter due to injury, leaving the total field at 25 (including Rösle). However, a combination of fresh snow in the morning and high winds in the early afternoon forced the downhill finals to be cancelled, thus handing the discipline crown to Odermatt and also locking up a Swiss podium sweep (with von Allman second and Monney third).[1]
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