Linus Straßer just wanted to leave. When the decision was made in the spectacular night slalom on the Planai in Schladming, he was already on his way home. Out in the first round, the dress rehearsal for the Olympic Games was botched – “Now I’m leaving, they’re going without me,” said the World Cup third place. He also had a clear plan for preparing for the Olympics: “I will spend time with my children.”
With too much courage to take risks, Straßer slipped off course on the icy slope at the third-to-last gate and slid to the finish without braking. Afterwards he sat on the seat of his pants for a while in the seething finish area and looked disappointedly into the snow. But just a few minutes later he had caught himself again: “If you want to be at the front, you have to go all in,” said Straßer in “BR”.
He wanted to pick up speed again in the lower section of the route and therefore “let the skis go,” reported the Munich resident, “but that was too much of a good thing.”
Three days earlier, the 33-year-old, who won the “Night Race” in 2022 and 2024, achieved his best result of the season with third place in the slalom in Kitzbühel. “That’s how close joy and suffering are in the slalom,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Straßer immediately emphasized that he wasn’t particularly worried about the Olympics. “I see it a bit like Kitzbühel: It happened in Kitzbühel because it’s not just any race, it’s the one day where you want to be there. And that’s how I see the Olympics too,” he said: “It doesn’t matter what comes before and after, it’s the one day that counts – and that’s how I’ll approach it.”
