ÖSV hat trick in Kvitfjell: Ortlieb ahead of Venier and Gritsch

At the Super-G in Kvitfjell on Sunday, Nina Ortlieb beat her teammates Stephanie Venier and Franziska Gritsch. First snow and wind, then improving conditions have mixed up the classification properly. Ortlieb drove with start number 31, Venier with 29 and Gritsch with 26. The decision in the discipline World Cup has been postponed.

Five athletes still have the chance to win the small crystal globe, including Cornelia Hütter, who won the Super-G on Friday and this time was only the fifth best Austrian in 14th place. World Cup Downhill winner Sofia Goggia was fourth with 16 on her chest – the Italian was the only runner with such a low number in the top five.

Downhill World Champion Jasmine Flury from Switzerland with the usually unfavorable starting number 1 also had better conditions than the top favorites and was sixth ahead of overall World Cup winner Mikaela Shiffrin. Carinthian Nadine Fest came in eleventh place. Christina Ager (17th), Elisabeth Reisinger (22nd) and Tamara Tippler (28th) also took World Cup points with them. Mirjam Puchner was eliminated due to a goal error.

For Ortlieb it was the second World Cup victory after the Super-G in La Thuile in February 2020. The 26-year-old downhill vice world champion from Vorarlberg, like Venier (+0.12 seconds) and Gritsch (+0.38 ) have better visibility, less wind and less snowfall during their run than the top runners with the front numbers. “I have to be honest, I certainly had better conditions than at the beginning. The snowfall has decreased. I’m well aware of that,” Ortlieb admitted frankly in an ORF interview. “But I haven’t always been lucky this year. I always say it balances out.”

For Venier, it was the comeback on the podium after Crans-Montana in February 2020, when she finished third in the downhill. “I think that today we were quite favoured, in terms of the weather. I knew at the start at the top that everything was still possible because Franzi drove just ahead of me,” said the Tyrolean.

Before Sunday in the Super-G, Gritsch had only one other top 30 result to his credit, having been seventh in Hütter’s victory on Friday. “Mega cool,” said Gritsch, who also admitted: “The view has opened up a bit for us, but I tried to really use it.” The last time the Austrian ski women celebrated a triple victory on January 25, 2009 in a giant slalom in Cortina d’Ampezzo: Kathrin Zettel won ahead of Michaela Kirchgasser and Elisabeth Görgl.

The last Super-G of the season will take place at the final in Soldeu. The Italian Elena Curtoni is still at the top of the discipline ranking, she leads 19 points ahead of the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami and 25 ahead of Hütter. Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel is 26 points behind, while Italy’s Federica Brignone is 44 points behind. None of this quintet made it into the top ten in Kvitfjell.