Giovanni Franzoni just won the “Super Bowl of skiing.” Soon, he’ll be chasing Olympic gold — on home snow, no less.The breakout star of the Italian ski team, with the Milan Cortina Winter Games opening next week, Franzoni is quickly coming to grips with his newfound status.A victory in the downhill on the legendary Streif course in Kitzbühel, Austria, over the weekend — the race described as skiing’s Super Bowl — followed his first World Cup win a week earlier in Wengen, Switzerland.Franzoni had never even been on the World Cup podium until he finished third in a super-G in Val Gardena last month.“I didn’t expect to be in this position,” he said. “I knew I could do well but there’s a big difference between believing it and doing it. Now I’m trying to handle it all — the media attention, the physical part, the mental part … I just want to enjoy the Olympics. I know that I can do well, so I don’t see any reason to heap expectations onto myself.”Franzoni, after all, isn’t skiing just for himself. He’s also racing in memory of his former roommate and teammate, Matteo Franzoso, who died after a crash in preseason training in Chile in September that opened a debate on safety in the sport.When Franzoni won in Kitzbühel, he looked to up the sky on the winner’s podium and dedicated the victory to Franzoso, who he had shared a room with at the Austrian resort a year earlier on his first trip to the Hahnenkamm event.“I made a promise to someone in paradise,” Franzoni said. “It’s a mix of emotions that I have a hard time describing.”Franzoni’s victory Saturday relegated overall World Cup leader Marco Odermatt to second place, and left the Swiss standout in tears on the podium after again failing to win the Kitzbühel downhill.“I was almost upset seeing him like that,” Franzoni said. “I understand how much he wanted to win that race and how many years he’s been fighting for it. But I don’t think it’s a tragedy for him, considering all the races he’s won.”Odermatt won the super-G in Kitzbühel on Friday for a second year. But he’s been racing in “Kitz” for eight years; whereas Franzoni won the Kitzbühel downhill on his second try, at age 24.Unlike many professional skiers, Franzoni did not grow up in the mountains.He comes from Manerba del Garda on the shore of Lake Garda near the city of Brescia.But he and his twin brother, Alessandro, quickly took to skiing at nearby Pont …
