It seemed easy and confident, but the path to the historic World Cup triple was rockier than it seemed: “It worked in my head,” says snowboarder Ramona Hofmeister about the path to the three crystal balls.
Snowboarder Ramona Hofmeister still has to process the historical dimension. “It still takes a few days for me to realize it, for me to notice it,” said the World Cup triple winner on Blickpunkt Sport on BR television.
Hofmeister came straight from the World Cup in Winterberg, where she had secured the Slalom World Cup. She had previously been crowned overall World Cup winner and winner of the giant slalom World Cup. A hat-trick of titles that no German snowboarder had ever achieved before.
Party not yet planned
The big party? “It was fun, but not intense, we still had the team event,” says Hofmeister. Even if she returns home now, nothing is planned yet. You can tell how the experiences of last winter are still working on her: “It’s one of my best seasons and the fact that I can crown it with three balls is brutal.”
In the end, it wasn’t as obvious as the fans outside on the TV screens and in the Internet streams perceived it. Because Hofmeister, who usually doesn’t show any nervousness, was anything but calm.
If the tunnel is missing: “Pressure moves along every second”
“In the last few races I couldn’t do it quite the way I’m used to,” she looks back. “In general, I manage quite well to get to the top of my tunnel,” she says. But that’s exactly what was missing recently, for example in the last giant slalom race, where it was close, because “the pressure was on every second.”
“That was the first time I noticed how it was working in my head,” she adds. She had already won the giant slalom World Cup three times before, but then she started to ponder: “You may fulfill your own experiences and defend your ball.”
Sleepless nights after the successes
At the end, as we all know, there is something historic – and yet she still had restless nights. Even in Zauchensee, Austria, she couldn’t sleep after winning the giant slalom World Cup, nor after the slalom title. “I was awake again at three or four in the morning.”
In the video: Ramona Hofmeister – the Bavarian snowboard queen
Source: Blickpunkt Sport March 10, 2024 – 9:45 p.m