Daniela Maier confirms her current top form and can hope for a medal in the competition on Saturday. Florian Wilmsmann is also strong in sixth place.
In the qualification for the ski cross competitions on Saturday, the 2022 Olympic bronze medalist, Daniela Maier, was convincing. She had the third-best time on the World Championship track, confirming her performance of the season so far. The 26-year-old was on the podium a total of four times and is currently in a strong fourth place in the overall World Cup. Only Sochi Olympic champion Marielle Thompson from Canada and top favorite Sandra Näslund from Sweden were faster than Maier.
With Johanna Holzmann from the Allgäu, another German qualified for the fight for the World Championship medals. Just under two seconds behind, she finished tenth in qualifying at her first World Cup appearance. Holzmann has only been part of the ski cross team since last season 2021/2022, before that the 27-year-old was in the Telemark World Cup.
Müller is missing, Wilmsmann convinced
For the men, Tobias Müller and Florian Wilmsmann have been strong lately. Müller was able to celebrate two podium finishes this winter, but the 30-year-old will miss the World Championships in Bakuriani because he tore his cruciate ligament in the last World Cup race on the Reiteralm.
Wilmsmann, who has not yet been able to claim a podium result this season, but came very close several times as fifth and fourth, is now regarded as the most promising German driver in the title fights in Georgia. On Friday he easily qualified for the competition in sixth place. He was just under three tenths behind the surprising leader Satoshi Furuno.
Other DSV starters well behind the leaders
The Japanese is currently only 39th in the overall World Cup. He won the qualification ahead of Sweden’s David Mobaerg and Canadian Jared Schmidt. In addition to Wilmsmann, Tim Hronek (16th), Niklas Bachsleitner (22nd) and Daniel Bohnacker (24th) also qualified for the competition on Saturday. However, the three DSV starters were already more than a second behind the leaders.