In slalom, Johannes Strolz has made it back into the world elite this season and made it into the top 15. In the “Krone” interview, the Vorarlberg native revealed how big a relief it is to see how the season continues for him and what the planning for speed disciplines entails.
After the end of the World Cup season, Olympic champion Johannes Strolz began his next training sessions on the way to becoming a state ski instructor. There will be more racing excitement starting on Wednesday: First there will be the police championships in Vorarlberg’s Montafon, before we head to the Reiteralm for the Austrian championships. Krone: Johannes, what a great relief it is to have finished the World Cup season in the top 15 of the Slalom World Cup rankings ? Johannes Strolz: It was very important to me to regain stability, which worked very well. The fact that I managed to return to the top 15 is really a great thing and I have also achieved one of my big goals for the season. You are a racer. How difficult was it to hold back so as not to miss out and score the necessary points? That was anything but easy, as you still had to attack in most of the passages. Getting this interplay, this switching, under control was sometimes difficult. But I managed it well and then I felt better and better. What was good and is particularly good for me: that after the races in Chamonix and Aspen, where I noticed that things were getting better and better, I remained patient and didn’t try to force it. And then, thank God, that fourth place came out in Aspen. Before this winter, you had never finished in the slalom more than twice in a row in the World Cup. You have now scored nine slaloms in a row. Yes, that was by far my most stable season in the World Cup. But this is not just due to slowing down. This year things simply went in a good direction in all areas. We worked a lot on the technology and the basics. But also because I have a better line choice and the swing approaches are more precise. We tried a lot with the material – and in the end we made progress. I also noticed that I had reached a different level of communication with my service man Benedikt Auinger. The second year was much more natural and the work of last year has now borne fruit. What’s next for your downhill career? We haven’t found anything fixed yet. But I will sit down with the trainers soon and discuss the whole thing. How things went this year and what the prospects are for the future. As has been said many times, this is a long-term project. But you definitely have to consider how much time you invest when you invest it. What other races do you have on your program this season? On April 4th I’ll be competing in the police slalom championships on Golm and I’ll be doing the downhill and super-G at the state championships on the Reiteralm.
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