The last chance of the German Ski Association (DSV) lives on a medal. Linus Straßer attacks on Sunday afternoon (February 16, 2025) from a hunter position in the fight for precious metal at the final men’s slalom of the 48th World Ski Championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm.
Before the decision in the afternoon (1:15 p.m. in the live ticker) is a Straßer fifth. He is 13 hundredths of a second behind the current bronze man Atle Lie McGrath.
“It goes tip to drive, no problem in it”the German alpind director Wolfgang Maier radioed up when the road was at the start as a Straßer. And the strongest German slalom driver took this info – and started directly agile, without a big approach.
Noel presents furiously – Straßer goes out a little breath
Thanks to his tight radii, he put the top time at the top, but the ski racer from TSV 1860 Munich seemed to go out a little breath compared to the most powerful Clément Noel. With a time of exactly one minute, Straßer arrived at the bottom, Noel – 2022 Olympic champion in Beijing – needed 59.23 seconds for the 68 World Cup goals.
With the start number one, Noel really started like the fire brigade – the Frenchman managed a dream run where the rest had to nibble. Thanks to good sector times at the end of the run, Loic Meillard was most likely to sniff the tour. It starts with 0.19 seconds behind, McGrath has to catch up 0.64 seconds as third.
Straßer should save the honor of the Germans
Straßer lurks behind it to save the honor of the German ski racers in the neighboring country late. After twelve days of skiing championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Germany’s ski racer have not yet won a precious metal. Straßer is the slope, but in the team combination last Wednesday he made the second best slaloma.
There was nothing to him on Sunday morning that he found himself in an extremely rotating slalom run. On the contrary: he accepted the challenge and kept the deficit within limits. Behind him there is already a gap to the Austrian local hero: Manuel Feller from Fieberbrunn is sixth, more than half a second behind Straßer.
The rest of the drivers should only have something to do with the medal fight if the route should break differently than expected.