World Cup | Alpine skiing: Start of the season with a disastrous result in Sölden

Start of the season in Sölden: Well-prepared piste - but the eternal ice is also melting on the Rettenbach glacier. Photo: imago/Mathias Mandl Ski World Cup again? It was still summer. The question arises every year when the first alpine races of the new season take place in Sölden. But this time especially after a hot summer and pleasant temperatures until the beginning of October. One consequence: for the first time, all glacier ski areas in Europe were closed. The eternal ice is no longer eternal, it is melting everywhere.

The fact that the Ski World Cup can still take place as usual on the last weekend in October with a giant slalom for women on Saturday and men on Sunday has to do with the large snow depots that have been filled in the mountains above Sölden in spring for a few years now. The World Cup piste on the Rettenbachferner is therefore well prepared, and as expected, a few flakes of snow have fallen up there in the last few days.

It's all ok? No. Preparation is becoming increasingly complicated and expensive for the teams; almost all of them now travel to ski resorts in the southern hemisphere, New Zealand or South America in the summer. In Argentina and Chile the snow conditions were good this time, but the weather was not always good. Things got difficult after we returned. “So far everything has focused on the Pitztal,” said Linus Straßer. Because the opening event is the giant slalom, the athletes starting in Sölden have also had priority in training in the past few weeks. “As a slalom rider, I am second winner,” says Straßer, for whom the season begins in Levi in ​​mid-November.

“There is a different spirit, a new togetherness.”

Making skiing future-proof is one of the main tasks for Alexander Ospelt. The new president of the International Ski Association Fis from Liechtenstein replaced the controversial Johan Eliasch at the top in the summer, causing a sigh of relief, especially among the major ski nations. “There is a different spirit, a new togetherness,” says Stefan Schwarzbach, board member of the German Ski Association and member of the Fis Executive Board. “People try to understand and listen to each other.” The President of the Austrian Ski Association Roswitha Stadlober notes a “real spirit of optimism.” »Ospelt stands for transparency, he emphasizes that again and again. Things were different under Eliasch, when one person decided something alone and often didn't even let the others know about it."

Even if the direction is correct, as Schwarzbach believes, “the problems cannot be solved overnight.” Because: “The balance sheet after five years of Eliasch is simply disastrous.” Above all, the financial one: The Swede with a British passport has left a structural deficit of 20 million Swiss francs, and almost 50 percent of the reserves have been used up. Because more money has to come into the coffers and this cannot only be achieved by streamlining the structures and the personnel apparatus that was bloated under Eliasch, the Fis floated the idea of ​​organizing additional Alpine and Nordic World Championships every four years. Schwarzbach thinks it's legitimate to think about it, but "it became clear very quickly that such a step is not realistic with a view to 2028."

As soon as the excitement had died down, Fis race director Markus Waldner caused the next one with his short-term resignation. The South Tyrolean cited a lack of energy and mental pressure as the reason. But there may be something else behind it. Hannes Trinkl, who is responsible for the World Cup downhill runs at Fis, not only rejected Waldner's successor, but also considered withdrawing. There still seems to be something rumbling in the world association.

The athletes care less about what happens behind the scenes. For them, the focus is on the new season, the fight for the World Cup balls. Because today's outstanding ski racer, Mikaela Shiffrin, announced that she wanted to ski fewer slaloms and concentrate more on giant slalom and super-G, Emma Aicher is now given a good chance of winning the overall World Cup. Last winter, the all-rounder from SV Mahlstetten was only 87 points behind the American.

After her two silver medals at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo in February and a season in which things went much better "than I expected," Aicher still doesn't feel any pressure: "I want to concentrate on mine and what I can do better. I can’t influence the rest.”

Aicher skis all four disciplines because of the overall World Cup, but also because she simply enjoys skiing and loves variety. But of course, she admits, it is “a goal” to win the big crystal ball. Sometime. On the one hand, Shiffrin can also win giant slaloms and super-G races and thus compensate for the missing points in the slalom. On the other hand, “there are so many fast girls at the start, regardless of the discipline,” says Aicher. “You really have to step on the gas.” But as we all know, that’s not difficult for her.

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