Olympia 2018: ÖSV ladies with weakest result for 24 years

After two races with medals, Austria’s hopeful alpine ski ladies suffered a defeat in the downhill on Wednesday at the Olympics. Ramona Siebenhofer as the best in tenth place meant the worst downhill result in 24 years. The head of the women’s team, Jürgen Kriechbaum, was visibly disappointed:”The training performance was clearly better. You didn’t get to the point today.”

After Stephanie Venier and Siebenhofer had driven hard in practice and had even won two of the three training runs, they had even started the race with quiet hopes of winning medals. The fourth and penultimate individual decision for the women’s alpine women’s singles started out badly for Austria, namely a dangerous crossbreed of Cornelia Hütter, who is the number one racer at the finish line.

“I’m happy to be safe in the finish line,”confessed the Styrian who, after her mishap, was only 13 years old. I could have saved myself this piece of pizza for the children’s course,”said Hütter, whose ski tips had caught dangerously on the aggressive snow at 100 km/h to a plough.

The Lake-Louise winner hadn’t had to take part in the internal qualification, but was unable to cope with the Olympic track in Jeongseon from day one:”I really got off to a good start, but then I didn’t fit in the hose very well and from then on I was always behind,” said the 25-year-old, describing her journey and explaining:”Here you need extreme sensitivity, otherwise it will tear the tenth place for you.

On day X, the Styrian had to rustle from top to bottom, she emphasized:”We were definitely beaten below value, that hurts,” she had to accept this now, but only for today, not for the future. It hurts my heart, I don’t let my fighting spirit break”, Hütter emphasized. May winter end as it began.”

Siebenhofer had even been considered a secret favourite as an emotional rider, but the Styrian had once again been a nerve-racking man:”It all started already in the afternoon,” she woke up at two o’ clock in the morning,”said Siebenhofer. But at the start it was gone again.

Nevertheless, Siebenhofer twisted it in the first traverse straight away:”I was not so relaxed and had the cutting tool bought off right away. From then on, I wanted too much,”she suspected,” Maybe,”according to Siebenhofer,” the expectations were too great. For the Styrian in a station wagon on Thursday. Siebenhofer:”The clocks are back to zero.”

In the historic downhill victory of Sofia Goggia ahead of Ragnhild Mowinckel and Lindsey Vonn, Venier didn’t see the finish:”Better than at the finish line and dissatisfied,” the Tyrolean rider shrugged her shoulders after her fall.”I’ve driven a bit cheekier, more sloping and then everything went very fast”, explained the downhill runner-up World Champion. Her motto:”Show a good downhill and survive the slalom.”

One of the riddles was Nicole Schmidhofer’s twelfth place:”I was in a great mood, not nervous at all and I hit everything cool at first. But then suddenly it didn’t push any more, nothing happened in the middle part,”said the Super-G world champion. At the finish, I really fell down the ark.”

Kriechbaum, too, broke at 38 goals after the Olympic race with only 39 women starters,”Only Venier was well on the way. But there would not have been a medal for them either. It should have detonated a bomb at the bottom,”was his analysis.

The women’s race director was enormously disappointed by the second worst overall Olympic result after Lillehammer in 1994 (games after the death of Ulrike Maier),”I am completely disappointed. We are here to show the best in races. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s annoying when it happens at the Olympics. That’s why I’m rather dissatisfied,”admitted the native of Upper Austria.

Of course, the huge topic of Olympia would play a role, Kriechbaum says,”But we clearly discussed that we are in the attacking position and not the hunted. That should have made it easier. Many have already shown that they can outgrow themselves in games. We didn’t succeed today.”

However, the focus today should not only have been on attack but also on sensitivity. With the combination brought forward to Thursday, the ÖSV ladies get another performance, but with Siebenhofer, Venier and Ricarda Haaser, they are only an outsider trio.”Favourites are the others,” Kriechbaum said.