The die has been cast, Austria’s Olympic Committee will send 106 athletes to Beijing for the 2022 Winter Games, which begin on February 4th. Among them are nine Upper Austrians, but not the Peilsteiner speed racer Elisabeth Reisinger, who had shown on Saturday with a seventh place in the Cortina downhill. The non-nomination of Theninger Michael Hayböck comes as a surprise after a disc operation and the delayed entry into the Ski Jumping World Cup (on January 3rd at the Four Hills Tournament).
The two ÖSV aces are not the only well-known absentees: Fabio Gstrein (alpine skiing), Julian Eberhard (biathlon), Chiara Kreuzer and Philipp Aschenwald (ski jumping) and Lukas Klapfer (Nordic combined) are also absent. Due to injuries, Adrian Pertl and Roland Leitinger were not an issue for the Alpine athletes, for Nicole Schmidhofer and Nina Ortlieb the Olympics came too early after their injuries. Snowboarder Claudia Riegler is not vaccinated against the corona virus and was therefore not included.
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Two additional tickets
Alpine aces Stefan Brennsteiner and Max Franz were able to breathe a sigh of relief at the last second. They received tickets later after the Alpine skiing division had been awarded four additional quota places by the International Olympic Committee. Two of them went to Austria.
Last week, the ÖSV and other nations had pushed for the IOC to agree to the proposal to transfer unused quota places from other sports to the Alpine ones, or for the World Ski Federation (FIS) to cancel questionable races that were the cause of a quota shift. The IOC asked the FIS to review their qualification system to prevent similar problems in the future.
The Upper Austrian Provincial Ski Association was pleased that eight athletes from its organization will be represented in China. Double world champion Vincent Kriechmayr (TVN Sparkasse Wels), Daniel Hemetsberger (SV Unterach), third in Kitzbühel, Andrea Limbacher (Askö Bad Goisern), Christina Födermayr (SC Union Hohenzell), Johannes Rohrweck (TVN Großraming), snowboarder Clemens Millauer (SV Molln), ski freestyler Samuel Baumgartner (USC Raiffeisen Hinterstoder) and ski jumper Jacqueline Seifriedsberger (SC Waldzell) have the Olympic license. In addition, there is bobsledder Markus Glück from Vöcklabruck.
“This is a huge success for winter sports in Upper Austria, the work with young people is paying off. Now we’re keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for a medal,” said Klaus Kumpfmüller, President of the State Ski Association.
“richly packed”
ÖOC President Karl Stoss expressed the hope of “going home richly laden” and gave out 14 to 17 medals as a goal. There were 14 in Pyeongchang four years ago and 17 in Sochi eight years ago. In addition, they want to be among the ten best winter sports nations again.
The entire ÖOC delegation consists of 342 people. Christoph Sieber, who is responsible for sports at the ÖOC and windsurfing Olympic champion in 2000 in Sydney, acts as Chef de Mission. According to the ÖOC, the total costs amount to around 5.5 million euros “due to pandemic-related travel restrictions and cost explosion”.
Source: Nachrichten
