Franjo von Allmen won the World Cup downhill at Val Gardena on Saturday

Val Gardena (Italy) (AFP) - Franjo von Allmen got the better of Marco Odermatt to win Saturday’s downhill at Val Gardena and claim his first World Cup win of the season.

Switzerland’s Von Allmen clocked a time of one minute and 58.67 seconds immediately after Odermatt had briefly gone top with a time which ended up being 0.30sec off the winning pace.

Italian Florian Schieder completed the podium, 0.98sec behind Von Allmen.

Von Allmen, the reigning downhill world champion, reversed the result from Thursday’s downhill on the same Saslong piste when he finished second behind Odermatt who claimed his 50th World Cup win.

“It’s really cool, I didn’t expect it at all,” said Von Allmen.

“It’s really cool to share the podium with Marco, and to change sometimes –- sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s him.”

Odermatt, in great form ahead of February’s Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, still leads Von Allmen by 50 points in the downhill standings as he attempts to retain the discipline title for the second straight year.

And the 28-year-old also extended his lead at the top of the overall standings to 463 points over Henrik Kristoffersen who did not compete on Saturday.

“At the moment he is, with me, probably the fastest downhiller in the world, and we push each other,” said Odermatt of Von Allmen.

“We know if someone has the perfect run, it is very hard to beat, and for sure that pushes the whole sport.”

Kristoffersen will aim to cut that gap on Sunday and Monday as the men’s tour moves across northern Italy to Alta Badia which will host a giant slalom and a slalom.

After reaching his half century of World Cup wins on Thursday, World Cup champion Odermatt is joint fourth in the all-time men’s list behind Ingemar Stenmark (86), Marcel Hirscher (67) and Hermann Maier (54).

Women’s ski star Mikaela Shiffrin holds the overall record with 105 World Cup wins.