Dominik Raschner followed up his somewhat surprising nomination for the 2023 World Ski Championships with action. The Tyrolean won the silver medal in the individual parallel competition on Wednesday, teammate Adrian Pertl was fourth. Meanwhile, Alexander Schmid secured Germany’s first medal at this World Cup in Méribel – it shone in gold. The Norwegian Maria Therese Tviberg became the women’s world champion, ÖSV solo fighter Franziska Gritsch made it to the quarter-finals.
Silver went to the Swiss Wendy Holdener, bronze went to another Norwegian, Thea Louise Stjernesund. Local hero Marie Lamure stumbled in the small final and went away empty-handed. In the men’s category, Pertl was 0.19 seconds behind the Norwegian bronze medalist Timon Haugan. Raschner easily cleared Mattias Rönngren from Sweden in the opening hurdle, and in the quarterfinals he prevailed against the super talented Norwegian Alexander Steen Olsen. Pertl first won the duel with US athlete River Radamus and then eliminated Italian Luca de Aliprandini. So the ÖSV-internal rendezvous in the semifinals was perfect, there the Tyrolean didn’t give Carinthian Pertl a chance despite a mistake in his second run on the blue course. He was clearly behind in the final against Schmid. For Austria it was the sixth medal at the World Championships and the third in silver. Surprise lady Lamure In the women’s competition, only one Austrian was represented with Franziska Gritsch. The Tyrolean defeated the Norwegian Kristin Lysdahl in the round of 16, but was then beaten by Lamure from the Courchevel ski club by 0.24 seconds. “The mood is still sunny. So much can happen in parallel,” said Gritsch. “I started the competition extremely cool, but unfortunately I didn’t pull it off. I really have to respect Marie’s performance.” Defending champion Katharina Liensberger, Ricarda Haaser, Julia Scheib and Katharina Huber hadn’t made it through the qualification the day before. From the ÖSV men, Fabio Gstrein and Stefan Brennsteiner fell by the wayside. “They got it from the speed. That pulls me to something like that”, Marko Pfeifer, men’s racing director, was annoyed about it.
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