Start of the season without much expectation: Alpine quintet does not get intoxicated at first

Start of the season without much expectation
Alpine quintet doesn’t get intoxicated at first

The German Ski Association is tackling the alpine season opener with a small team. However, there are no ambitions for top positions, it is more about building up towards the Olympic Winter Games in February. Especially since the DSV stars attack later.

The days were almost intoxicated. Silver, silver, silver and bronze, one medal more surprising than the other. But this very successful World Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo in February is already a thing of the past for the alpines of the German Ski Association (DSV). When the World Cup starts again at the weekend in Sölden, Austria, as it does every year, the 2022 Olympics in Beijing are already casting their shadows.

“There are no problems”, said Alpin boss Wolfgang Maier with a smile before the giant slalom races for women (Saturday, 10/1:15) and men (Sunday, 10/13:30, ARD and Eurosport). That is a question of perspective, because the Germans are actually not in such good shape at the start of the season: In any case, no miracles are to be expected from the quintet that the DSV sends into these first two races.

Alpin boss Maier sees “no problems”.

(Photo: imago images / GEPA pictures)

For Andrea Filser, at least third in the World Cup with the team, Marlene Schmotz and Julian Rauchfuß, the first thing to do is to qualify for the second run of the top 30. The qualification for the Olympics, for which the DOSB is demanding a placement in the top eight or two in the top 15, seems even more unattainable. Even the two top drivers Stefan Luitz and Alexander Schmid do not guarantee a good start to the season.

Luitz and Schmid were also awarded bronze in the team competition at the World Cup, but Sölden is probably not much more than a warm-up program with no great prospect of success. Luitz achieved 14th place as the best result on the Rettenbach glacier. Schmid, who was on the verge of winning a medal in the giant slalom at the World Cup, has been suffering from an annoying tendon irritation in his left knee since the beginning of the summer training.

The strong downhill riders won’t be on their way for four weeks

Nevertheless, Maier hopes for top results from the “tech guys”, including Linus Straßer. For him, the World Cup doesn’t really start until the slalom starts at the end of December. Success is therefore initially promised by the strong downhill riders around the World Cup runners-up Romed Baumann (Super-G) and Andreas Sander (Downhill), who will not intervene in the World Cup in North America until the end of November.

“So far, what we’re doing is good,” said Maier about the men, but there is still uncertainty about the sporting future of the best German downhill runner: Thomas Dreßen is hoping for a return this season after an operation on his left knee The comeback of the 2018 Kitzbühel winner in racing is actually in the stars. For him, it’s all about “getting the knee back at all,” he says.

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Thomas Dreßen threatens to be out for a long time.

(Photo: imago images / Oryk HAIST)

And with women? “At the moment we only have the Kira,” says Maier about Kira Weidle, sensational runner-up in the World Cup downhill. But she too will not enter the World Cup until December in North America. The giant slalom, says head coach Jürgen Graller, “is still our Achilles heel”.

And so Maier is initially just his standard saying about Sölden: “If we drive well, we say we have done everything right, if we do not drive so well, we say, now we have a little more to do.”

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