Alpine skiing: the Beijing team is taking shape

Although Nina Ortlieb (February 2020 in La Thuile) and Nicole Schmidhofer (December 2019 Lake Louise), who are only back in advanced training, and whose Olympic starts still remain too early after a serious knee injury, are the last domestic Super Cup winners – G And if downhill is missing, Christian Mitter, ÖSV women’s head coach and downhill coach Florian Schipper, is not without Olympic-worthy speed drivers.

In addition to Ramona Siebenhofer and Ariane Rädler, who compete in several disciplines and who confirmed their tickets to China with third places in the Zauchensee sprints, Mirjam Puchner, Christine Scheyer, Tamara Tippler and Cornelia Hütter also earned their rights to an Olympic start. Place. Giant slalom specialist Stephanie Brunner and technicians Katharina Linsberger, Katharina Galhuber and Katharina Troup will also be present.

Two contenders for a vacancy

Chiara Meyer entered play for fourth place at Nightrace in Schladming, but then dropped out. As the slalom specialist has a disadvantage compared to Katrina Huber, she has no more qualifications until next Sunday’s deadline and Lower Austria can also start in several disciplines or can also be used in the group. “So far, I’ve skated pretty badly for it,” Tyrolean Meyer said.

After Schladming, Mitter also expressed his reservations in this regard and emphasized that he still had difficulty evaluating the Olympics. “It’s not just about slalom. You also have to see what happens in the other majors,” put the ÖSV women’s manager in perspective and also point out that Maire has only had one really good run during the season. “So you have to leave the church in the village,” said Mitter. “On the other hand, I rode really well in the end. The better the result is the better the result, and it shows.”

Ortlieb is making a comeback

Ortlieb is certainly no longer a problem for Beijing. The woman from Vorarlberg also sustained a serious knee injury last winter, just one month after Schmiedhofer, and also fractured her knee in the summer. No wonder the 25-year-old, who is working on a comeback with ÖSV group coach Meinhard Tatchl, is at the back. At least, the woman returned from the Lech on the snow. “So far it has been nothing more than therapeutic skating,” explained Patrick Rimmel, who is responsible for high-performance sports at ÖSV.

“Nina is an important part of our team. One of our best athletes that you would like to be in initially, even at the Olympics. She is making good progress. The Tyrolean explained why Ortlieb could not compete in Cortina this week, and therefore not at the Olympics, but still There is a long way to go. There will likely be no start in the race this winter. “The most important thing is that she is in good health and in good shape,” Rimmel said.

Schmidhofer is slowly approaching

A question mark behind the start in Cortina, where there is a descent on Saturday (10:00 a.m.) and Super-G on Sunday (11:45 a.m., both live on ORF1), also hovers over Schmidhofer. At Zauchensee, the Stearon Don did both races and only started in Super-G as a racer. By doing so, she helped her teammates, especially Rädler, tremendously. After two more days of treatment on Tuesday, Schmidhofer wants to decide if she will ever travel to Cortina.

In any case, at Zauchensee, the hope of a first home win since Scheyer’s surprise turn in 2017 and ÖSV’s first-ever speed win since Ortlieb was unfulfilled. And this despite the fact that for the first time since 2014 and the victory of Elisabeth Gorgel, the descent began from the top of the steep Gamskogel summit. Puchner somehow saw it coming even though she’s already had three podiums this season.

“I don’t even know if I got a good result here in Zuchensee,” the Salzburg native lamented that the way home wasn’t ideal for her. But bad things can turn around at any time. “And at least I’m a lot better technically than I’ve been in the past few years,” the 29-year-old said. “I am really looking forward to Cortina. This suits me better in terms of terrain.”