Beat Feuz

Beat Feuz
— Alpine skier —

Feuz in 2012
Disciplines Downhill, Super-G,
Combined
Club Schangnau
Born (1987-02-11) 11 February 1987
Schangnau, Bern,
Switzerland
Height 1.72 m (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in)
World Cup debut 10 December 2006
(age 19)
Website beat-feuz.ch
Olympics
Teams 1 – (2014)
Medals 0
World Championships
Teams 2 – (2011, 2015)
Medals 1 (0 gold)
World Cup
Seasons 7th – (2007, 2010–2012,
          2014–2016)
Wins 7 – (4 DH, 3 SG)
Podiums 22 – (13 DH, 5 SG, 4 KB)
Overall titles 0 – (2nd in 2012)
Discipline titles 0 – (2nd in DH & KB, 2012)
Medal record
Men’s alpine skiing
Competitor for   Switzerland
World Championships
2015 Beaver Creek Downhill
Junior World Ski Championships
2007 Altenmarkt Downhill
2007 Altenmarkt Super-G
2007 Altenmarkt Combined
2005 Bardonecchia Slalom
2007 Altenmarkt Slalom

Beat Feuz (German pronunciation: [ˈbe.at ˈfɔɪts], born 11 February 1987) is a Swiss World Cup alpine ski racer.

Racing career

Born in Schangnau in the canton of Bern, Feuz made his World Cup debut in December 2006, but missed all of the 2008 and 2009 seasons due to torn ligaments in his left knee.[1] He secured his first two World Cup podia at the end of the 2011 season, both in downhill races at Kvitfjell, Norway, in March. His first podium was a victory, and he backed it up with another podium the following day.

At his first World Championships in 2011, Feuz finished 9th in the Downhill in Garmisch, Germany. He also competed in the Super Combined, where he finished 2nd in the Downhill portion, but skied out of the Slalom course with just a few gates to go. He also competed in the team event for Switzerland, which lost to Sweden in the quarterfinals.

2012

Feuz carried this positive momentum into the start of the 2012 season, with four podia by mid-December. He placed second in the first downhill of the season at Lake Louise, 0.06 seconds behind Swiss teammate Didier Cuche. Feuz posted two podia in Beaver Creek and then won his second World Cup event and his first in Super G on December 16 at Val Gardena (Gröden), Italy. Just miles from his hometown, he placed second in the Super Combined at Wengen in January, and won the classic Lauberhorn downhill the next day.[2] In February he won the pre-Olympic downhill in Russia at Rosa Khutor, the alpine racing venue for the 2014 Winter Olympics. A breakout season for Feuz, he won four races and had a total of 13 podiums. He finished second in the overall World Cup standings, second in the downhill, second in combined, and third in Super G.

Out for 2013

Feuz changed equipment from Salomon to Head after the 2012 season,[3] but it was later revealed that he was suffering from inflammation and bleeding in his left knee, and would miss the whole 2013 season.[4][5] The knee was re-injured at the pre-Olympic races in Russia in February 2012, and was operated on after the season in March for bone fragments.[3][6] He re-aggravated it during training in Argentina in August and was sent home for evaluation.[7]

Return in 2014

Feuz returned to the World Cup circuit in 2014, and in his third race back, claimed 6th place in the Birds of Prey Downhill. This however, was to prove to be Feuz's best result of the season as he still appeared to be struggling with his knee injury. Feuz no longer entered Giant Slalom races, and his ability in Slalom was diminished so that he could no longer contend in the Super Combined races, not even entering the Kitzbühel Combined competition, a race in which he had previously finished on the podium. Feuz was selected for the Swiss Olympic team and raced the Downhill, Super G and Super Combined, however a 13th in the downhill was the closest Feuz came to a medal. Overall, it was clear from the results in 2014 that Feuz wasn't skiing at 100%, not even managing to qualify for the World Cup Finals by finishing outside the top 25 in both Downhill and Super G in the final standings.

Return to top positions in 2015

After another offseason's worth of recovery for the knee, Feuz started the 2015 season brightly, taking 6th position in the opening Downhill in Lake Louise. The breakthrough result came in the next downhill as Feuz came runner-up in the Birds of Prey for the second time in his career. After the event, through an interpreter Feuz said "my knee will never be 100 percent again", and that for him his comeback story was "almost bigger than I can imagine, it's almost too much".[8] The lasting effects of the knee injury were clear though, Feuz didn't manage better than 17th in the first four Super G races of the season, and he still wasn't entering Giant Slalom races as he had done previously. Form in Downhill however was very much there, and Feuz backed up his result in Beaver Creek with a second runner-up placing, this time at his home Downhill in Wengen.

The podium results in Downhill were enough to book Feuz a ticket to the 2015 World Championships. The worlds were held on the Birds of Prey hill on which Feuz had twice been on the podium in his career. The Championships didn't start off so well however, as Feuz was left out of the Swiss squad for the Super G in favour of Mauro Caviezel. The downhill however was a different story, as Feuz led the race for much of the way. He was eventually beaten by teammate and eventual winner Patrick Küng and American Travis Ganong, but Feuz claimed the Bronze, his first major championship medal.[9] In the Super Combined the next day, Feuz produced another stellar downhill run, finishing 2nd by a narrow margin after the 1st leg. In the slalom run, Feuz was forced to ski in warm conditions on a rutted course, and this together with the deterioration of Feuz's technical skiing after his knee injury, meant Feuz blew a lead of over 3 seconds on gold-medalist Marcel Hirscher.

2016

Once again, injury problems were to spoil things for Feuz, who sustained an Achilles injury straddling a gate whilst training in South America. He was expected to miss at least the first few races of the season.[10] Later however, it was revealed that Feuz was targeting a comeback in time for his home races in Wengen. Feuz skied the downhill leg of the Wengen combined and elected to start the downhill the next day, earning a respectable 11th place in his first race back. Moving on to Kitzbühel, and still taking the training runs and races on a day-to-day basis, having earned another solid result of 16th in the Super G, Feuz elected to race the Downhill the next day. In only his third full race since his return and on a course Feuz had never been better than 6th before, he finished in runner-up position in a race full of high profile crashes.[11]

World Cup results

Season standings

Season Age Overall Slalom Giant
Slalom 		Super G Downhill Combined
2007 20 118 — — 52 46 —
2008 21 injured: out for two seasons
2009 22
2010 23 73 — — 53 41 18
2011 24 22 — — 34 7 14
2012 25 2 — 34 3 2 2
2013 26 injured: out for season
2014 27 50 — — 28 27 28
2015 28 19 — — 22 7 23
2016 29 13 — — 12 5 —

Race podiums

Season Date Location Discipline Place
201111 Mar 2011Norway Kvitfjell, Norway Downhill1st
12 Mar 2011Downhill3rd
2012 26 Nov 2011 Canada Lake Louise, Canada   Downhill 2nd
2 Dec 2011United States Beaver Creek, USADownhill2nd
3 Dec 2011Super-G3rd
16 Dec 2011 Italy Val Gardena, Italy Super G 1st
13 Jan 2012 Switzerland  Wengen, Switzerland Super Combined2nd
14 Jan 2012Downhill 1st
22 Jan 2012Austria Kitzbühel, Austria Combined2nd
5 Feb 2012France Chamonix, France Super Combined3rd
11 Feb 2012Russia Sochi, Russia Downhill 1st
12 Feb 2012 Super Combined 2nd
2 Mar 2012Norway Kvitfjell, Norway Super G1st
4 Mar 2012 Super G 3rd
14 Mar 2012Austria Schladming, Austria Downhill 2nd
2015 5 Dec 2014 United States Beaver Creek, USA Downhill 2nd
18 Jan 2015 Switzerland  Wengen, Switzerland Downhill 2nd
2016 23 Jan 2016Austria Kitzbühel, Austria Downhill2nd
30 Jan 2016Germany Garmisch, Germany Downhill3rd
20 Feb 2016 France Chamonix, France Downhill 3rd
16 Mar 2016  Switzerland  St. Moritz, Switzerland Downhill 1st
17 Mar 2016 Super G 1st

World Championship results

  Year    Age   Slalom   Giant 
 slalom  		Super-G Downhill Combined
2011 24 — — — 9 DNF2
2013 26 injured, did not compete
2015 28 — — — 3 14

Olympic results

  Year    Age   Slalom   Giant 
 slalom  		Super-G Downhill Combined
2014 27 — — 27 13 15

References

External links

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