Ski Alpin: Höfl-Riesch criticises slalom team – records for Shiffrin and Hirscher

The inimitable Mikaela Shiffrin and Marcel Hirscher celebrate record victories at the World Cup finale – for the Germans there is criticism from appointed mouths.

Maria Höfl-Riesch had already seen enough after the first slalom run. Lena Dürr was 15th at the World Cup finale in Are/Sweden. again far away from the top and Marina Wallner already retired, Höfl-Riesch drew a sobering balance.

“There were one or two good approaches, sometimes a top 10 result,” said the ARD expert about the ending season of the German slalom riders, “but all in all it is too little what comes. The development that we have been hoping for years has failed to materialize.”

This was confirmed in the final. While Mikaela Shiffrin also celebrated a record victory just one hour after Marcel Hirscher, Dürr even dropped back to 18th place. Her gap to Shiffrin, who clinched her ninth slalom World Cup victory of the season: 4.54 seconds.

“That’s a great pity and I’m surprised,” said Höfl-Riesch, after all Dürr contributed three victories to third place at the Team Event the day before. The German Ski Association had”tried a lot” in recent years to bring the team forward after they resigned in 2014, but”nothing really worked,” said Höfl-Riesch.

Four of the season’s top ten finishes were in the Olympic winter, Dürr’s sixth place in November in Levi was the best result. The DSV is still waiting for a podium position in the Höfl-Riesch era. She was”curious”, the three-time Olympic champion said, which steps the association would now take.

This is not normal,” said the 23-year-old about the 1.58-second lead over second-placed Wendy Holdener. After a brief, almost unbelieving look at the scoreboard, Shiffrin cried out her joy:”That was a wonderful feeling, the emotions of the whole season broke out of me,” she said.

Shiffrin surpassed the great Croatian Janica Kostelic, who won eight slaloms in the winter of 2000/2001. No other ski racer has achieved more seasonal success in one discipline. Shiffrin won her seventh special slalom 2017/18 on Saturday and won a city event and a parallel slalom.

Hirscher took his 13th place in the giant slalom. This was the best result of Ingemar Stenmark (Sweden/1979) and his compatriot Hermann Maier (2001). On Sunday in slalom he can even surpass the duo:”That’s incredible and incomprehensible,” he said.

At his 58th birthday. World Cup victory, the 28. in the giant slalom, Hirscher was 0.23 seconds ahead of his permanent rival Henrik Kristoffersen from Norway. Alexander Schmid, the only German qualified for the World Cup final of the best 25 giant slalom riders, finished 14th.