SÖLDEN. The alpine ski winter traditionally starts this Thursday in Sölden with an avalanche of press conferences by outfitters and teams. Even before the start of the season with the two giant slaloms on the Rettenbachferner (Saturday, women; Sunday, men), the Austrian camp can refrain from asking themselves about their chances in the fight for the overall World Cup. The big crystal balls are out of reach for the new head trainers of the skiing superpower Austria – Thomas Trinker for the women and Marko Pfeifer for the men.
“Certainly not this year, that’s for sure,” says Trinker about the prospects of winning the overall World Cup. Pfeifer, too, is satisfied when one or the other small crystal ball for success in a discipline World Cup jumps out at the end of the winter. “The fact is, we don’t have an Odermatt in our ranks,” says the successor to ÖSV men’s boss Andreas Puelacher, who switched to the German Ski Association. In addition to defending champion Odermatt, the Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde is a candidate for overall World Cup victory. Another Norwegian, Henrik Kristoffersen, comes into position as a laughing third, the 28-year-old has important Austrian pacemakers in his team. Kristoffersen has switched to Marcel Hirscher’s ski brand “Van Deer”, where two clever minds are active in the background with ex-ÖSV sports director Toni Giger and Hirscher’s father Ferdinand. When asked when “Van Deer” was ready to win the first World Cup, Kristoffersen recently answered relatively convincingly with “in the coming winter”.
Liensberger with a new coach
A duel between defending champion Mikaela Shiffrin and Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova is expected again this winter for women in the fight for the big crystal globe. In the Austrian team, hopes are mainly focused on slalom specialist Katharina Liensberger, who has a new coach in Livio Magoni. The Italian had previously worked successfully with Tina Maze and Petra Vlhova. The latter made serious accusations against Magoni in her biography, which was published a year ago, due to a “rude management style”. After her career, Maze also criticized the brute methods of her coach at the time. Magoni and Liensberger – will that go well for a long time?
Source: Nachrichten
