Priska Nufer gets her first World Cup victory in the downhill

The first encounter with Priska Nufer was thirteen years ago – and stayed. Junior World Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a 17-year-old from Obwalden, who chats away without hesitation and not only answers the journalist’s questions, but also asks them herself.

Nufer made her debut in the World Cup when she was almost 20, she developed into an athlete for whom there is the word place driver in jargon. It’s not a nice word, it always sounds a bit derogatory because it roughly means: scores diligently, but doesn’t make it onto the podium.

Tailored to fit

On Sunday in Crans-Montana, Priska Nufer made it onto the podium for the first time in the World Cup. She won the second downhill ahead of Ester Ledecka, yesterday’s winner, and Sofia Goggia, today’s best specialist. Nufer was fourth on Saturday, 0.39 seconds behind third. She had gotten the worst possible start number 30 in the draw, had she been lucky instead of unlucky, she might have managed her first podium place then.

Now Nufer wore the lowest possible start number 2, good luck instead of bad luck. She did an excellent job on the technically demanding Mont Lachaux slope, which is so precisely tailored to her qualities that Nufer has now all achieved her best four World Cup results on this mountain. Nufer sat in the leader’s chair and watched as one competitor after the other was slower than her. She left the privileged spot again and again, she didn’t seem to walk but to spring, her face a single radiance and her eyes water that glittered in the sun.

When she was the winner, Nufer said she always cried when she thought about being on top, “and now they have flowed very hard”. In January, Nufer had weakened the corona virus, but she got back in shape in time for the Olympic Games. In China, however, she got nothing in the fight for a starting place for the downhill, she was only used in the combination. Nufer was eliminated, and even Mikaela Shiffrin, who had to endure even more darn games, comforted her.

In Crans-Montana, Nufer said that she had often failed in the past because of thoughts of such disappointments – “but this time I was able to turn the setback into positive thoughts”. Together with Corinne Suter, Jasmine Flury and Joana Hählen, Nufer has been the core of the downhill team for years. She saw Flury surprisingly win a Super-G in St. Moritz in 2017. How Hählen managed two podium finishes two years ago. How Suter rose to become a champion.

Nufer had to turn 30 before it was finally her turn. “Everyone works hard, everyone who reaches the podium is to be treated like that,” said Nufer, “it is not self-evident that it will work out at all, there are also many whose careers end beforehand, because of some accidents, for example. It was nice to see the successes of my teammates – and to know, also from the training performance, that something like this is also possible for me. »

“She won everything”

Nufer comes from Alpnach, where she grew up in a farming family with five siblings. As a high school student, she was one of the first talents to benefit from the regional performance center (RLZ) Hergiswil with a school model tailored to skiing. This RLZ was built by Walter Odermatt, Marco Odermatt’s father, among others.

Even as a girl, Priska Nufer raced against Michelle Gisin, the two-time Olympic champion in combination from Engelberg. Gisin celebrated Nufer properly on Sunday when she crossed the finish line. Later she rummaged in childhood memories. Nufer, a year older than her, was always her idol, “she won everything”. Once they got lost in the fog after a race, “I was completely off my feet, Prisi comforted me, it’ll be fine”. Nufer was “so often really unlucky, she never noticed it like that, fortunately, but I often stood at the bottom and thought: No, now the only cloud in the sky is pushing back in front of the sun at exactly the moment when Prisi drives out of the starting box. I hope she finally sees how good she actually is.”

Priska Nufer also said that in very difficult times, “when you get one on the lid race after race”, she had asked herself why she was doing what she was doing. “I’m grateful I stuck with it.”