The German ski racers turned a fiasco at the Ski World Cup in Saalbach-Hinterglemm late. No country presents itself as strong as Switzerland in the Austrian World Cup hexet boiler from Saalbach-Hinterglemm.
“In the end everything will be fine. And if it is not yet good, it’s not the end yet.” This saying, which has been attributed to so many clever people over the years, may have come to one or the other member of the German Ski team after the final ceremony of the final slalom of the 48th World Ski World Championships.
Finally, this hope took this anxiety, this eternal medal warehouse until the final race, before Linus Straßer was quickly enough in the slalom for World Cup bronze behind the Swiss Loic Meillard and the Norwegian Atle Lie McGrath. The previously threatening fiasco, the first medalless World Cup in 18 years, failed to materialize.
DSV sports director Maier not satisfied
“Insanely beautiful” Feel the first individual medal at a major event, said Straßer. In 2021 in Cortina d’Ampezzo he won the World Cup bronze with the team, a year later at the Olympics in Beijing Team silver. So finally on the podium alone at a major event, after winning the slalom classics Kitzbühel and Schladming last year.
The Ski-WMS in Are 2007 and St. Moritz 2003 remain the darkest DSV episodes of the 2000s. In the end, the German Ski Association (DSV) did not get everything right away, but at least some things were good again. After this World Cup in Saalbach-Hinterglemm in so many facets.
Only Straßer has the “punch” in the German team
Sports director Wolfgang Maier tried not to hide his disappointment about the days before the Straßer Coup in his usual open, honest manner: “Of course, the goal was to win medals, namely two,, we definitely didn’t achieve that. We have good approaches, we are not completely cut off, but we lack the punch on the podium.” A punch that added Maier, but the Straßer showed. In addition to his bronze medal, he also took the second strongest run in the slalom of the team combination, so only the time of the downhill Simon Jocher was too weak for medal placement.
Apart from the 32-year-old Wahl-Tiroler Straßer, Maier had to process a number of disappointments. Sometimes little things were missing – but the decisive ones – and in the men’s speed disciplines, they gaped almost mandatory gaps. The team of national coach Christian Schwaiger, once a proud DSV division, is now far away from the world elite.
Combination team “Emma and Aicher”?
Lightblows delivered others in the Saalbach-Hinterglemms sun. For Maier, it remains a secret to what the result of this experiment would have looked like, which he would announce in the middle of the World Ski Championships before the team combination. “We wanted,” he said with a grin, “actually form a team with Emma and Aicher.”
Emma and Aicher, the inclined ski alpine viewers know that is a person-the highly talented German ski hope Emma Aicher. Which of course was not allowed to compete in both competitions of the team combination. Together with the slalom runner Lena Dürr, the 21-year-old missed a medal because Dürr failed in her favorite discipline. Aicher had still thwartly presented as a run -down run – and is actually considered even stronger in slalom. The slopes of Hinterglemm were she, which has so much skiing feeling. Before that, despite the miserable start number, she had become sixth in Super -G and departure.
Lena Dürr becomes a tragic figure in the German team
Aicher may also be the only ski racer in the world that really suffers from the abolition of the old alpine combination (of an athlete), which has just been merged for a team combination since this World Cup, in which two athletes start in their respective special discipline or slalom .
Dürr, on the other hand, became a bit of a tragic figure, which was missing from the “Punch” mentioned by Maier: First she failed in the team competition at the Swiss Silver winner, then she could not use Aicher’s presentation in the team combination. And in the special slalom, she was missing more than a second of World Cup bronze.
Red-white-red jubilee mood in the target stadium of Hinterglemm
On the other hand, the Austrian Katharina Liensberger secured this medal under the great jubilation of the 15,000 spectators in the target stadium of Hinterglemm. The arena at the bottom of the slope became Austria’s witch cauldron for almost two weeks, and has also awakened the ski nation.
Whenever a red-white-red athlete reached the finish, the spectators roared and cheered particularly according to the slope-and the steel pipe stands on which they stood began to wiggle violently. For example, the surprising World Cup title by Raphael Haaser in the giant slalom. More than 170,000 spectators had visited the eleven competitions as a whole and thus ensured a big ski party, more atmospheric than at the last World Cup edition in Courzevel/Méribel in France or the penultimate-still Corona-shaped-in Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy.
Host Austria second in Medal mirror
The host, the most important, most important ski nation in the world this winter, also reported back in the medal mirror almost at the top of the medal. Austria finished second behind Switzerland with seven times.
The first Ski World Championship in Saalbach-Hinterglemm in 1991 went down in history-and the second edition 2025 was almost always sunny, only one day it snowed a little. The country was so inspired by the good atmosphere that the FC Bavaria sports director Christoph Freund, who grew up near the World Cup, was, for example, as a ski slide in the success of the competitions. Incidentally, there were no complaints about the slopes of the athletes, a remarkable exception.
Loic Meillard most successful Athlete of the World Cup
The Swiss ski racing drivers were almost no past for the others, 13 medals secured the Confederates, five of them with the Swiss Festival. Unlike previously expected, Marco Odermatt or the battered Mikaela Shiffrin were the most successful athletes.
But the Swiss Loic Meillard, who stepped out of the shadow Odermatts: gold in the team combination, bronze in giant slalom and gold at the end of the slalom. After her gold medal in the team combination, Shiffrin pulled the most successful World Cup medal collector with Christl Cranz at all, Odermatt won the Super-G title. In 2027, the Confederates, in all their strengths, are now even looking forward to a home World Cup in Crans-Montana.
Swiss success is also based on a bitter disappointment
The German team could now give hope that this positive example of Swiss brilliant achievements once grew out of a bitter World Cup disappointment. In 2005 at the World Cup in Bormio, the proud ski nation had to travel home without precious metal.
“In the end everything will be fine. And if it is not yet good, it’s not the end yet.” That may have thought that some Swiss officials may have thought at the time. After the major event, the association turned its structures upset – from then on also located at three national performance centers.
The World Cup dominator Odermatt, World Cup star Meillard or the departure world champion Franjo von Allmen now benefit from this. The bitter bankruptcy at that time was the basis for today’s medal festival games. So it is now the task of Maier and the German Ski Association (DSV) to draw the right conclusions from this just saved Ski-WM 2025 in Saalbach-Hinterglemm.