Alpine Ski World Cup: Slalom ace Straßer is eliminated and struggles

Alpine ace Linus Straßer is still not getting going this season. After a botched first run, the 32-year-old risked too much in the second round of the Slalom World Cup in Alta Badia, Italy, and didn’t make it to the finish. “It’s not fun,” said the Munich native on Bayerischer Rundfunk. “If you want to take something positive from such a starting position, it is that you have little to lose. It was really good at times, but there were always small mistakes.” He now wants to find ways out of the depths.

The best was Timon Haugan. In his second World Cup victory, the Norwegian was 1.13 seconds ahead of the Swiss Loic Meillard. His compatriot Atle Lie McGrath came third, 1.26 seconds behind. Anton Tremmel from Rottach-Egern finished in the points for the first time this winter in 25th place.

Straßer had already struggled with himself after the first round and admitted a lack of self-confidence. “If you’re missing something, then you’re missing the ultimate consequence of going through with it properly. Then you always pull back, I notice that myself. That’s just how competitive sport is, then you get the tough bill straight away,” said the Munich resident on Bavarian Radio.

With 2.58 seconds behind the best runner, Haugan, he no longer expected to make it into the second round. But since the slope became worse and worse as time went on and a total of 22 runners were eliminated, he still qualified for the final run. “I pulled back every momentum a little bit,” said Straßer.

Mind as the enemy of the racer

After taking second place in the slalom ranking last season, Straßer was actually considered one of the top candidates for overall victory in the discipline ranking this winter. In Levi, Finland, he came seventh in the first scoring run of the season, but in Gurgl he missed the second round in 38th place and didn’t get any points. Most recently in Val d’Isere he was also eliminated in the second race.

“The racing driver’s biggest enemy is the mind, when it makes you doubt you. You’ve already seen with him today that he’s simply not 100 percent convinced of what he can do at the moment. That’s why mistakes like this happen and then And also the elimination: That’s certainly not particularly beneficial for his mental state,” said Wolfgang Maier, alpine director of the German Ski Association, about Linus Straßer.