Alpine skiing-Can Austria tighten iron grip on slopes at Beijing Games?

LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters) – The strain is on for Austria, essentially the most profitable ski nation of all time, to show that it nonetheless has what it takes to dominate on the Beijing Olympic Video games.

Austria’s file on the Winter Olympics is untouchable. Its skiers have received 121 Alpine medals for the reason that delivery of the Winter Video games, nearly twice as many because the second most profitable nation, Switzerland.

However this yr all the pieces is completely different. Deliberate check occasions in China’s Yanqing mountain space needed to be cancelled final yr due to COVID-19 and the course might be opened for apply solely on Feb. 3, three days earlier than medal occasions start.

“We solely have little or no info (concerning the terrain) as a result of none of us has been over there but,” mentioned Austrian males’s Alpine head coach Andreas Puelacher.

“This provides suspense and doubtless problem — for each nation, not only for us,” Puelacher mentioned.

Coronavirus has hit the Austrians, too, with super-G and downhill world champion Vincent Kriechmayr and slalom skiers Katharina Truppe, Michael Matt and Manuel Feller testing optimistic lower than a month earlier than the beginning of the Video games.

However there isn’t a let-up for the nation which produced skiers resembling Toni Sailer, who received three Olympic gold medals in 1956, together with on one all-Austrian podium. Austria would paint Olympic podiums completely in red-and-white once more in 1964 and 2006.

Within the Seventies, it’s laborious to discover a season not received by Franz Klammer and Annemarie Moser-Proell. On the eve of the brand new millennium, Hermann ‘The Herminator’ Maier emerged to win 4 World Cup seasons, three world championships and two Olympic golds.

Extra not too long ago, Benjamin Raich, Marcel Hirscher and Anna Veith turned ski mega stars.

Within the pace races, Kriechmayr, Matthias Mayer — Olympic gold medallist within the super-G and downhill — Feller and Raphael Haaser have each purpose to hope for medals in Beijing after their performances this season.

Within the mixed occasion, Marco Schwarz’s world championship gold final yr may pave the way in which for Austria to retain the Olympic title within the self-discipline after Hirscher’s gold in Pyeongchang.

Johannes Strolz, son of 1988 Olympic mixed champion Hubert Strolz, misplaced his place in Austria’s squad final yr however has come again with a vengeance, securing his first World Cup race victory within the slalom this yr.

As for the ladies, American Mikaela Shiffrin, Italy’s Sofia Goggia and Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova will put up stiff competitors, however Goggia injured her knee shortly earlier than Beijing, leaving her participation within the Video games hanging within the stability.

Slalom world champion Katharina Liensberger and Mirjam Puchner have already climbed the rostrum for Austria greater than as soon as this season.

Liensberger, although, is recovering from the coronavirus and reached solely twenty first place within the final pre-Beijing race in Schladming.

Reporting by Shadia Nasralla; modifying by Clare Fallon

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.