Kitzbühel (Austria) (AFP)

The Swiss Beat Feuz won on Friday for the first time in Kitzbühel, in the first of two descents on the legendary Streif in Austria.

The three-time defending champion of the downhill globe edged outgoing Austrian winner Matthias Mayer by just 16/100 and Italian Dominik Paris, who won three times in the Tyrol resort, by 56/100.

After four second places (2020, 2019, 2018, 2016), Feuz, at 33, finally obtained the consecration in the most prestigious descent of the season, deprived this year of its usual 90,000 spectators due to Covid-19 and interrupted more than half an hour because of the wind then definitively after 30 starters.

Feuz becomes the first Swiss to win it since the king of Streif, Didier Cuche, holder of the record for victories (5), the last of which was in 2012.

Slightly behind this season with only one podium so far, he does not take the lead in the general classification in downhill.

This goes to Matthias Mayer who overtakes the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, defending champion of the big crystal globe, who suffered a rupture of the cruciate ligament in his right knee in training on Saturday.

The Streif once again recalled that it was the most demanding and dangerous track on the circuit on Friday with the impressive fall of the Swiss Urs Kryenbühl on the last jump of the descent, just ahead of the line.

The 26-year-old Swiss descender lost his balance in the air at a speed of over 145 km / h.

On impact, one of his skis bent under the violence of the shock and his head hit the track.

He was helicoptered, conscious according to the Swiss Alpine Ski Federation on Twitter, to a hospital.

Like the American Ryan Cochran-Siegle (28), the fastest of the first training run on Wednesday, who fell and was thrown into the net, four bibs before Kryenbühl.

"He is standing, walking and doing well," assured his federation on Twitter.

Despite his crash in training on Thursday, the oldest French downhill, Johan Clarey, 40, fell short of the podium, at 89/100, after being ahead in the first half of the downhill.

© 2021 AFP