The German ski racer and Kitzbühel winner Thomas Dreßen has not yet coped with the course in the first training run for the Olympic downhill on Sunday.
Dreßen even missed a goal on the less challenging “Jeongseon Downhill” and finished 31st. The 24-year-old had a 2.28-second gap to the Canadian Manuel Osborne-Paradis, who set his first lead time in 1:40.45.
Josef Ferstl (Hammer) was in 21st place (+1.84 seconds) and Andreas Sander (Ennepetal) in 24th place (+1.94), the best German in the still not very meaningful first test run, which was also used by the riders to test the suitable material. Kjetil Jansrud (Norway/+0.31), who had won the World Cup two years ago and Mauro Caviezel (Switzerland/+0.45) were behind the fastest Osborne Paradis.
Dreßen drove with start number one,”that’s never nice in the first practice session, you’re always a bit of a test pilot, even if the track isn’t exactly spectacular now,”he said. The race, he added,”will definitely be a close story, it is said to be no mistakes” On the track in Jeongseon it is “hard to be fast, but easy to lose a lot of time”.
Slalom runner Linus Straßer (Munich) also ventured onto the track – he wants to start in the combination and must therefore complete at least one training session. His gap to the best time was 6.63 seconds – equivalent to 67th place. On Friday and Saturday there will be two more training runs.