Without his head coach Michael Pircher, Marcel Hirscher arrived in the USA on Monday evening (local time). Pircher has become a father himself a few weeks after Hirscher and will only fly to Colorado on Wednesday. Austria’s seven-time overall World Cup winner is preparing there for the giant slalom on Sunday in Beaver Creek, a Super-G start Hirschers is not likely to be.
Hirscher last won the slalom in Levi very thinly ahead of Henrik Kristoffersen, but warned that the next slalom in Val d’Isere next week could be the other way round. In the giant slalom he already has more good training days than in the slalom before Levi.
“That’s positive, but it doesn’t mean anything. Even in the giant slalom the competition doesn’t sleep and we won’t know where I stand until Sunday,” Hirscher wrote in his most recent blog on Monday. Last year Hirscher had sensationally won in Beaver Creek at his first giant slalom appearance after ankle fracture.
Hirscher started his training on American snow on Tuesday noon (local time) in Vail. As last time in the home country on the Reiteralm, there were units in giant slalom and slalom on the programme for the time being.
A Hirscher start in the Super-G on Friday is now practically impossible. “If I want to drive SG, I need at least one downhill training and that costs a total of two training days, which I would miss in my core disciplines,” says Hirscher. He therefore tends to “rather not”.
For Hirscher, the trip to Colorado is his first overseas trip as Papa. “That doesn’t necessarily contribute excessively to my motivation for this long journey,” he confessed, “but when I drive the season, I have to do it properly. Whoever says A must say B.”