Alpine Skiing: The tops and flops of the 2017/18 World Cup season

Marcel Hirscher, Mikaela Shiffrin, the start number regulation, Schneballgate and more. The tops and flops of the World Cup season 2017/18 in alpine skiing:

Winner of the overall World Cup for the seventh time and won the small crystal for the slalom and giant slalom classifications for the fifth time. With 13 season victories, the exceptional skier from Salzburg improved his brand to 58 and came closer to legend and record holder Ingemar Stenmark.

The Swede has 86 successes. And is also hunted by the US-American Lindsey Vonn, who after five season victories with a total of 82 only four are missing.

Twelve victories of the season went to the now 23-year-old, who won the overall World Cup for the second time and won the slalom ball for the fifth time.

The American won races in slalom, parallel slalom, city event, giant slalom and downhill.

The red-white-red alpine ski team won for the 29th time. in succession and a total of 39. Austria won with 10,725 points ahead of Switzerland (8,441), Italy (6,682) and Norway (6,324).

The men won the classification ahead of Norway and Switzerland (3,689), it was 26th place. Victory in a row and a total of 40. The ladies won ahead of Switzerland and Italy, it was the 32. Victory. Last year, the ÖSV ladies had to let Italy take the lead.

Two seasons now have the rule that the top ten of the world rankings in Downhill and Super-G may choose odd numbers between 1 and 19 for the race. The change, which was initiated by the ÖSV, often turned out to be unfair and should be changed again on the initiative of the speed pilots.

Athlete spokesman Hannes Reichelt will present this and other requests together with race director Markus Waldner at the congress of the Ski World Association in spring.

During Henrik Kristoffersen’s ride during the “Nightrace” in Schladming, snowballs flew towards him. This annoyed not only the Norwegian, who had won two days earlier in Kitzbühel.

Schladming slalom winner Marcel Hirscher also condemned the action: “This is very unhumorous, very uncool and very unfair. “With 50,000 people, there are five half-breasted people who think they’re super classy.”

The World Cup organisers have some catching up to do when it comes to slope preparation. The ladies in Lake Louise, Bad Kleinkirchheim and Garmisch-Partenkirchen were critical, the men in Kvitfjell and Aare. The reason for this was almost always the work with piste machines, which led to the underground being broken.

Nevertheless, the athletes do not accept new snow quantities from”excuse”, other organisers such as Kitzbühel would also manage it. In Kvitfjell, the FIS demand is that the organisation be put on a new footing, otherwise you leave.

Austria’s ladies are waiting in the giant slalom since 7. March 2016 (Eva-Maria Brem in Jasna) and in slalom since 30. November 2014 (Nicole Hosp in Aspen) for a victory. With a total of only nine podium places (2/2/5) in all disciplines, the season was lean.

In slalom there is at least one silver lining: behind the fifth in the world rankings, Bernadette Schild, a strong team is growing up. Olympic bronze medallist Katharina Gallhuber improved from 32nd to 6th place at the end of the pre-season, Katharina Liensberger from 45th to 10th. Katharina Truppe is currently 16.