Alpine Skiing: Training on the Streif: German downhill skiers confident

Despite mixed results in the final training, German ski racers can hope for a good result in the World Cup downhill on Saturday in Kitzbühel.

The best on Thursday on the shortened strip was Andreas Sander (Ennepetal) in tenth place, his time lag to Matteo Marsaglia (Italy) was 0.52 seconds. However, the second training run was not very meaningful.

In order to protect the last sections of the famous and infamous track, the riders were already stopped at Oberhausberg, i. e. before jumping over the Hausbergkante and driving into the difficult traverse into the finishing slope.”But I felt good at the top, I can take that with me,”said Sander. On Friday a Super-G will be driven at the Hahnenkamm.

Josef Ferstl (Hammer) and Thomas Dreßen (Mittenwald) finished the shortened training run on positions 20 and 41 after they finished in the slightly more meaningful first test run on Tuesday in positions 12 and 13. Dreßen, who was last in fifth place in Wengen, made a grave mistake in the steep slope.

“We’ve tried it a bit differently in the line, so I’m sure I won’t be driving it anymore,”he said,”but that’s what a training session is for.”

Dreßen doesn’t want to hold back on Saturday (11.30 a. m. at the LIVETICKER) at any rate:”If you go there passively, it becomes even more dangerous, especially for us riders, respect is part of it, but fear is not,”he said.

“Thomas is in extremely good spirits right now, he’s doing extremely well in every race and every run,” said Sander, who believes, following the latest mixed results like Ferstl,”that I can make a clear step forward with the two races here. Ferstl even thinks that Kitzbühel could be a “turning point” for him.

The criticism of the far too wide jumps after the first training was not repeated. The reason for this was, of course, that the precipitation had slowed down the stripe considerably since Tuesday.

“You defused the jumps well. The new snow has slowed it down a little bit, but that’s bound to change again on Saturday,”said Hannes Reichelt from Austria, downhill champion on the Streif 2014.