Ski Alpin: Hirscher: Injury gave me a kick

The last pre-Christmas race in the Alpine Ski World Cup has brought a lot of excitement to the Friday evening programme. Only 7/100 seconds back in Madonna di Campiglio Daniel Yule had no place in the top three. In return, his fellow countryman Luca Aerni took second place on the podium of the Swiss slalom men for almost eight years. And there was one constant: Marcel Hirscher.

Despite a serious mistake in the second run, the Salzburg man saved four hundredths of a cent on Aerni and another on Henrik Kristofferson, the double “defending champion” in Madonna. Four months and a week after suffering his ankle fracture Hirscher celebrates Christmas as the overall leader of the World Cup.”That’s really incredible,”said the ÖSV star himself.”Only at the end of the season I can’t buy anything.”

In any case, the basis for Hirscher’s seventh consecutive overall World Cup victory has been created, overcoming the injury and not noticing anything of the training gap. With four victories of the season, he not only holds his ground with as many successes as Mikaela Shiffrin, but has now moved closer to victory with 49 World Cup triumphs Alberto Tomba. It would mean a lot to Hirscher:”That would be great.’ Tomba la bomba” was a great one.”

Of course, it seems that the 28-year-old should be able to do much more. The Tomba, who was among the spectators in Madonna, expects Hirscher to reach the record mark of 86 victories set by Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark. After all, after only one-third of the Olympic winter season, the Annaberger has two thirds of his six-win mark from last season on the credit side. And in 2016 he was fit and started the season with a full training effort.

In the following months, however, no less than nine second places followed. These were the basis for his renewed victory in the overall World Cup. At the moment, it looks more like the winner of six gold medals is going to drive even more on risk and victory,”It’s much more fun than last year,” Hirscher revealed after the Madonna coup,”I’m more motivated.

This gave me a kick,”said Austria’s current and four-time” Sportsman of the Year “. Admittedly, time was tough with the injury. But statements that he could write off the overall World Cup would have pushed him. So it should be with mistakes like that in the Madonna final. His rejoicing after the finish has shown how much deer is such a victory.

This would have been possible for Manuel Feller this time as well, his gap as fifth placed was only 22/100 – despite the capsule distortion he had just survived. But the Tyrolean didn’t come down error-free like Christian Hirschbühl did. Without his heavier lapse in the second run, the 12th-placed rider (+0.71) could have landed right at the front. Thomas Hetteger was 16th (1,17) and delivered a fine result for him.

Andreas Puelacher, head of ÖSV racing sport Andreas Puelacher, however, was not so satisfied with the yield in the previous season’s runs,”There are too many mistakes, there would have been a lot more inside,”said the head coach. Puelacher attributed the fact that people like Michael Matt and Marco Schwarz are still without a podium finish to their inconsistent performances. However, the coach was pleased with the overall results of the men’s ÖSV after the first phase of the season.

In this race there was no downhill victory yet, but it could be on Thursday (28. December) in Bormio. Hirscher fits for the combination on Friday, just like his World Cup rival Kristofferson does. Hirscher’s next assignment in the World Cup will therefore be the parallel slalom on New Year’s Day in Oslo. After a few days of Christmas break and rest, Europe’s “Sportsman of the Year” will begin special training for this purpose.