{"id":286792,"date":"2026-02-08T05:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/286792\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T05:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:21:16","slug":"irelands-cormac-comerford-makes-olympic-debut-in-downhill-skiing-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/286792\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s Cormac Comerford makes Olympic debut in downhill skiing \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cormac Comerford<\/a> has finished 34th in the men\u2019s downhill on the opening day of the Alpine skiing at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics<\/a>, where Switzerland\u2019s Franjo von Allmen delivered a sensational performance to win the first gold medal of the Games.<\/p>\n

Comerford was making his Olympic debut in skiing\u2019s queen event at the Stelvio Ski Centre in Bormio, finishing the 3,442-metre course in a time of 2:04.40. That left him 34th among the 36 starters, and well pleased with his effort on a highly technical, and in parts treacherous, course.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible feeling to make my Olympic debut today in this weather, on this slope,\u201d said Comerford, who started out last among the field. \u201cTo bring it down Stelvio is a huge achievement, coming from the artificial slope back home. There\u2019s a huge sense of pride. I made a few mistakes in the run, it felt smoother in training, but that\u2019s racing and I\u2019m really proud to have brought it down.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s eyes are on you, and the track is probably as destroyed as it can be. It\u2019s definitely more challenging, but the snow grip team did an amazing job keeping the conditions good and safe. It\u2019s a pleasure to ride this slope. It\u2019s renowned on the World Cup circuit as one of the toughest slopes in the world, so it\u2019s great that I\u2019ve had the opportunity to run this track, in these conditions, at this time of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a really long journey with lots of bumps in the road. I\u2019m excited to be here and looking forward to putting down my best performances. If I\u2019m proud, I hope I can make Ireland proud as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Comerford still has three more Alpine skiing events to come; the super-G, giant slalom, and slalom. The Dublin skier first discovered the sport at age eight on the dry slopes of the Ski Club of Ireland in Kilternan, qualifying for these Winter Games on his fourth attempt.<\/p>\n

\"GoldGold medal winner Franjo von Allmen of Switzerland in action during the men’s downhill in Bormio. Photograph: Alexis Boichard\/Agence Zoom\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Rising Swiss star Von Allmen crushed the Italian hopes of a home victory, also getting the better of his fancied team-mate Marco Odermatt when taking the gold medal in a time 1:51.61.<\/p>\n

The Italian pair of Giovanni Franzoni and Dominik Paris had both taken the lead after their earlier runs, but in the end had to settle for silver and bronze medals respectively, clocking times of 1:51.81 and 1:52.11.<\/p>\n

Odermatt was the four-time defending World Cup champion and started as a strong favourite, leading the field after his run as he looked to claim his first Olympic downhill title. But ultimately it was Von Allmen, a 24-year-old with just four World Cup downhill wins to his name, who finished in glory.<\/p>\n

Von Allmen was the 2025 world downhill champion and mastered a course considered one of the most challenging in the skiing world. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think at the moment I can\u2019t really tell you in words what it means to me, for the moment it just feels like a movie,\u201d Von Allmen said. \u201cI was really relaxed in the morning and tried to keep the good feelings from the training, tried to fit all the pieces together from the training and just have fun skiing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new Olympic champion joins a long list of Swiss downhill champions, becoming the fifth gold medallist in the event from his country, with the last being Beat Feuz, who retired after winning at the last Games in Beijing in 2022.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s Thomas Maloney Westg\u00e5rd, born on the island of Leka in Norway to a Galway mother and Norwegian father, will return for his third Winter Olympics in cross-country skiing on Sunday. His first event is the 10km skiathlon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cormac Comerford has finished 34th in the men\u2019s downhill on the opening day of the Alpine skiing at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[137697,61,60,43,23196],"class_list":{"0":"post-286792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-cormac-comerford","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-winter-olympics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}