Alpine Skiing: Höfl-Riesch trusts Rebensburg overall World Cup

The three-time Olympic ski champion Maria Höfl-Riesch believes Viktoria Rebensburg will be able to take the big leap this winter.

“Vicky has a great chance of winning the overall World Cup. This season’s constellation is favourable. Some of the favourites in the fight for the big ball have just come back from injuries and are likely to focus more on the second half of the season,”the 32-year-old said in an interview with t-online.

Höfl-Riesch was the last German in 2011 to win the overall World Cup in the Alps. Previously, from a German perspective, only the Olympic champions Rosi Mittermaier (1976) and Katja Seizinger (1996 and 1998) had succeeded in doing so.

Title defender is slalom Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin (USA), who is likely to be hard to beat this season as well.

From Höfl-Riesch’s point of view, Rebensburg is on the verge of winning the opening race at Sölden, giving her “an incredible amount of self-confidence. This can be a very important impulse for the whole season.”

In addition, Höfl-Riesch hopes that Rebensburg, who won the 2010 Olympic gold medal in Vancouver’s giant slalom in 2010, will change a bit off the track:”She is already the undisputed leader in sport anyway.

It would be nice if she could develop this charisma a little bit more beyond sports, which would benefit the team and the German ski sport,”she said.