After Austria’s speed ladies had dominated the final training session for the European Cup downhills in St. Anton am Arlberg, the race didn’t quite go according to plan. For example, the World Cup experienced Tyrolean Christina Ager, who was the fastest in both training runs, dropped out.
It was just 0.13 seconds that the Tyrolean Lena Wechner missed third place on the first descent on Wednesday. “My ride was good and I’m quite satisfied,” says the 21-year-old from Zillertal, who was crowned Junior World Champion in the Super-G in March in Bansko, Bulgaria, ahead of the two Vorarlberg women Magdalena Kappaurer and Magdalena Egger. “However, if I started to think about where I lost the 13 hundredths, a few places would come to mind.” Wechner will have the next chance of her very first European Cup podium on Thursday. Emily Schöpf from Vorarlberg would also like to be there, improve two things. Especially in the middle section, where the 21-year-old lost time on Wednesday after a great run in the upper section. “I didn’t succeed perfectly,” explains Emily, whose dad Heimo crossed his fingers at the finish line. With seventh place, the army athlete, who suffered a comminuted fracture to her right thumb during giant slalom training last week and is starting with a splint, was again able to score important points in the fight for a fixed place for the coming World Cup season. After Christina Ager dropped out, the Tschaggunserin passed her teammate again in the overall downhill standings and is now 219 points behind leader Juliana Suter (Sz) – who finished second behind winner Esther Paslier (Fra) on Wednesday – in seventh (+0 ,94). The third best ÖSV lady was the downhill junior world champion of 2020 Magdalena Egger. The woman from Lech, who had lost more than four seconds to the best time in the first practice session on Tuesday, improved enormously, losing only 1.4 seconds to the winner Paslier and achieving 13th place, her second-best result in a European Cup downhill run. The booker Michelle Niederwieser was unlucky: the Head pilot was on course for the top 5 until after the “ice fall”, but a mistake cost the Head pilot a lot of time – in the end she finished 21st (+1.64). Two other women from Vorarlberg were happy about their first downhill points in the European Cup: 19-year-old Amanda Salzgeber from Bartholomäberg improved significantly compared to training and finished 26th, 1.84 seconds behind. And Magdalena Kappaurer from Bezau also proved on the technically demanding one “Karl Schranz” piste, on which World Cup races are scheduled again in January 2023, demonstrated their skiing qualities and finished in 29th place (+1.91).
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