Alpine Skiing: Team Speed ​​is out for the World Cup drivers

Schutter’s left knee retracted into a “U-Hakerl”—a 180-degree bend before the steep incline—and led to a fall. After being examined at the hospital, Styria received the bad news: cruciate ligament rupture and meniscus injury. The season ended prematurely for Schutter, who finished in the Top 30 five times in his first World Cup season and had a good chance of being allowed to start at least on the downhill courses at the World Championships in Courchevel/Meribel.

The 24-year-old joins the already long list of pace specialists who have dropped out this season. Matthias Mayer pulled himself out of the game with his sudden resignation before the end of the year, and before Schutter there were injury-related absences for Max Franz, Daniel Dunkelmayr, Christian Walder and Christopher Neumayer.

“It’s unbelievable, we’ve now lost six regular drivers. We’re still holding the flags high, out of respect for those who are still achieving the best results. It hurts when you lose someone to injury who was on track and also a World Championship problem,” said race director Pfeiffer. After all, Danklmaier is said to be on the verge of making a comeback.

Black as a secret stock?

Despite further failure, Pfeiffer stands by the path he’s taken. “Our basic situation is that we have many, many injuries. We stand together, we build youth, that’s why I’m in good spirits for the World Cup. We’ve got three good pacers. We have to get the best out of the best athletes.” Carinthian said of the world championships and recalled Also the “dark horse” or potential ace up his sleeve named Marco Schwarz The World Station Wagon Champion had shown sixth place: “He can certainly surprise.”

World champions Krechmeier, Atmar Stridinger and Daniel Himetsberger as well as Stefan Babinski and Schwartz could be a World Cup quintet – if Andreas Bloer had not been in training. Danklmaier might also come back strong. “He’s training with the team again, and then we’ll decide if Cortina is a problem. He’ll be a little hopeful, but of course you can’t expect miracles from him,” Pfeiffer explained.

Hopes rest on Kirchmeyer

Kriechmayr clearly holds the precious metals hopes in Courchevel. After his victory on Friday, the Austrian senior has three victories on the downhill and is second in the World Championships, 156 points behind Alexander Amodt Kielde. Not only did the Norwegian win the second race on Streif on Saturday, but he also won the other race of the season in which Kriechmayr was not the winner.

“I wished and wished for him,” Pfeiffer said of Kriechmayr, who had been at the top of the list for a win all week because of his performance and his skiing. “I said to myself, If he doesn’t win it now, I don’t know what will. He is at his best. I think he felt like the opportunity was there this year. You feel that as an athlete, you’re in a great mood, and then you take risks too, and you also feel stable enough to win it.”

After all, other healthy Austrians also showed strong performances on the steep hills at Hahnenkamm. Despite the injury, Stridinger followed up his 14th-place finish from the previous day with a sixth-place finish on Saturday, his best result of the season. Despite a sore knee, Hemetsberger has rehabilitated himself to 33rd in eighth place and hopes to get fit again in a few days with a “warm bath and infrared”. With three in the top eight on Saturday it was a “tremendous result” from an Austrian point of view, said Pfeiffer: “It was great as a team.”