Beat Feuz

Racing career

Born in Schangnau in the canton of Bern, Feuz made his World Cup debut at age 19 in December 2006, but missed all of the 2008 and 2009 seasons due to torn ligaments in his left knee. He secured his first two World Cup podia in March 2011, both in downhills at Kvitfjell, Norway. The first was a victory, backed up with a third-place finish the following day.

At his first World Championships in 2011 in Garmisch, Germany, Feuz finished ninth in the downhill. In the super combined, he finished second in the downhill portion, but missed a gate near the finish of the slalom course. 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. In North America, he placed second in the first downhill of the season at Lake Louise, 0.06 seconds behind Swiss teammate Didier Cuche. Feuz attained two podiums in Beaver Creek and then back in Europe, won his second World Cup event and his first in super-G at Val Gardena (Gröden), Italy.

Just miles from his hometown in January, he placed second in the super combined at Wengen; he had an advantage of 2.96 seconds over Ivica Kostelić after the downhill portion, but lost it on bad slalom and finished 0.20 seconds behind Kostelić. Feuz won the classic Lauberhorn downhill the next day.

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 had 13 World Cup podiums with four victories; in the final standings, he was runner-up in the overall, downhill, and combined, and third in super G.

Out for 2013

Feuz changed equipment from Salomon to Head after the 2012 season, but it was later revealed that he was suffering from inflammation and bleeding in his left knee, and would miss the whole 2013 season. 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. He re-aggravated it during training in Argentina in August and was sent home for evaluation.

Return in 2014

Feuz returned to the World Cup circuit for the 2014 season, and in his third race back, claimed sixth place in the downhill at Beaver Creek. This was 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, and his best result was a 13th in the downhill. His 2014 season indicated that he wasn't fully healed; he did not qualify for the season-ending World Cup finals.

Return to top positions in 2015

Feuz started the 2015 season brightly, taking sixth in the opening downhill in Canada at Lake Louise. The breakthrough result came in the next downhill as Feuz was 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." 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. 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, held on the Birds of Prey hill on which he had twice been on the podium in his career. Feuz was left out of the Swiss squad for the super G in favour of Mauro Caviezel, but in the downhill, he led the race for much of the way. He finished third, behind teammate Patrick Küng and American Travis Ganong, and gained his first major championship medal. In the super combined the next day, Feuz produced another stellar downhill run, in second by a narrow margin. 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 during training in South America. He was expected to miss at least the first few races of the season. 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; his best previous finish on the Streif downhill course was sixth. In only his third full race since his return, Feuz was the runner-up in a race full of high-profile crashes.

Season standings

Race podiums