Great joy instead of great crisis – this is how the beaten up became a superior team

Two podiums in Sölden: unthinkable until recently. Marco Odermatt and Gino Caviezel represent the new departure in the Swiss team. Only one of them seems beaten in the end.

René hauri

Published: 10/18/2020, 6:48 pm

They were humiliated reannen, as serendipitous extras in other people’s game. The Swiss: the vanquished. the Giantskrise prevailed then back on the giant slalom team. So it was, year after year, not long ago.

It’s the beginning of winter 2020/21: Giant slalom on the Rettenbach glacier above Sölden. At the end these scenes: Marco Odermatt, young Nidwalden with blond hair and a broad smile, tosses his skis aside, opens his arms. His target: Gino Caviezel, 28 years old from Graubünden, a man with a fast swing and a lot of patience, the breakthrough was denied for a long time.

Now the two of you are standing in this almost deserted area at 2680 meters above sea level, arm in arm, the sky shines steel blue above them, the often gray rocky landscape beside ther glacier tongue it’s bleached by snow: kitsch is perfect. They came second and third in the first race of the season, only young Norwegian Lucas Braathen was slightly faster. But she doesn’t need to worry about it on Sunday. It is also their day.

11 years after Cuche and Janka

Elf Years after the triumph of Didier Cuche and Rang Three by Carlo Janka, also in Sölden, two Swiss climbed back onto a giant slalom podiumt. Odermatt and Caviezel to be in order to for departure Your team, he currently burst of dynamism in which no one wants to give in, either training or playing. And where the atmosphere is pleasant, everyone is also committed to the success of others.may regret.

The competition drives the group, everyone meindividual. Caviezel would hardly be the third radiant if the boys didn’t challenge him every day. Odermatt and Loïc Meillard, both 23, brought a lot of movement to the team. Injury-plagued Justin Murisier, once intended to be the clear leader, finds his way back to the top of the world in his wake, and Thomas Tumler has moved toward him too. In Sölden, Meillard is fifth, Murisier is eleventh, Daniele Sette, the long-time fighter who finally belongs to the World Cup team at 28, Twentieth, Tumler was lost four Hundredths of the second race.

It is a result that skiing in Switzerland would not have dared to dream of three years ago. The rally also has something to do with coach Helmut Krug, who took over the team at the time. The Tyrolean has been on the ski circuit for 35 years, looking after the Swedes around Fredrik Nyberg and Jens Byggmark. He knows what it takes. Above all, diversity, that’s his focus. He is trying, to implement this in every workout, to challenge your athletes. You must also play at least two disciplines, «If someone only trains giant slalom day and night, they will no longer be productive at some point.»Krug said.

Chipped teeth

Odermatt power like Caviezel also in Super-G ride far ahead, Meillard in slalom or combination. «A good skier»Krug said, «a slalom must also start Y technically cut a good figure power. One discipline fertilizes the other. ” The Austrian drove very well with him, at least the start of the season was successful.

Only one sees after that quite damaged: Murisier is missing two teeth when standing in front of the camera, the blades of all things. S.wiss-ski would provide masks that your athletes can appear in afterwards. The Valais made a different decision: Ffor someone with a beard and broken teethnorth. The time when the Swiss were defeated in the giant slalom seems to be over.

Published: 10/18/2020, 6:48 pm