2002 will remain a special year for Switzerland's downhill pillar, Franco Cavegn - but not only because he achieved one of his best seasons ever on the World Cup tour. The veteran was certainly pleased by his 4th place in the final ranking of the downhill standings but for sure more by his wedding in May 2002.

He married his fiancee Denise during a trip to Brazil, one of his preferred countries even if there is no ski slope there! In fact, Franco, whose first language is Romanche used in the south east of Switzerland, speaks fluently several other languages including a little Spanish and Portuguese. He feels at home everywhere and often travels to Florida where his parents Arthur and Yvonne spend most of their time now. His father taught him to build roofs in Vella where he worked on the roofs of several houses in his younger years before focusing on ski racing. He followed the steps of his older brother Ronny, a former pro skier of the US tour who retired a couple of years ago after injuring himself at his knee. Franco has also a younger brother Sacha and a younger sister, Barbara who are not competing.

A member of the Swiss team in the late 1980's, Cavegn was an avid practitioner of extreme sports like mountain biking, motorcross and parachuting. Now he prefers to ride his horse with his wife and he learns to jump. Their horses are named Lucile and Killossery Kimberly. He also plays more golf now - hoping to improve soon. Interestingly enough, Franco is also interested by art - such as sculpture and painting.

Many knee injuries and surgeries from 1996 to 2000 prevented him to already achieve his potential in the 1990's - he even sat out the entire 2000 season because he needed to rest and repair a hole in the cartilage of his knee. He still regularly receives injections in that knee to lubricate it.

Yet he learned a lot during this pause - especially to be more concentrated and harder while training. This attitude should allow him to continue his progression during the 2003 winter - for the first time since many years, Cavegn was free of major pain this spring which helped him to train harder and better than before.

The Swiss also trained well in Las Lenas in August - allowing him to get used to his new material. As the leading downhiller on his team, Cavegn aims for a brilliant result at St Moritz during the coming World Championships. It's almost a home race for him - he wants more than his 9th place from January 2002!

Franco is not particularly superstitious but he carries with him a playing card found in a fountain when he was 14 or 15 - a nine of hearts which is also painted on his helmet!