Ski check of the weekend: a kiss, a scream and a marital crisis

Mathias GermannSports reporter

World champion Jasmine Flury (30) not only wins her first World Cup downhill in Val d’Isère, but also gets a calf. This is the traditional live prize that winners receive in the Savoyard Alps. Flury is especially impressed by how calm the animal remains despite the commotion – there is also a loud bang. “I named it Samira,” says Flury – it’s a tribute to her niece. It is unclear whether the Graubünden, who grew up on a farm, will take the calf with him to Switzerland. She wants to decide in the spring.

With starting number 23, Stefanie Fleckenstein (26, USA) loses her balance after a small mistake a few meters before the finish. She hits the pimple-hard surface violently, slides into the finish area – her cries of pain go through her bones. The diagnosis follows in the hospital in Grenoble: broken tibia. “I have a lot of thoughts, but I’ll save them for when I run out of morphine,” she writes from the hospital.

Lara Gut-Behrami knows she is in a good mood at the start of the Super-G. Your season so far has been brilliant. Then something happens to her that almost never happens to her otherwise: she judges it wrong and misses a goal. ‘Cazzo!’ shouts the woman from Ticino as she crosses the finish line. She doesn’t give interviews. The incentive of zero in her special discipline runs deep; it could even cost her the discipline bullet in the fight with Federica Brignone.

It is questionable whether Wendy Holdener will still participate in ski races this winter after breaking her ankle. It is all the better that something happens in the second slalom guard of the Swiss women. Nicole Good (25) takes 1st and 2nd place in Ahrntal (It). Of course, head coach Beat Tschuor will also call her up for the night slalom in Courchevel on Thursday (Friday).

Joana Hählen (31) can be very satisfied with places 2 (downhill) and 6 (super-G). Yet the power woman from Lenk BE had long since deserved to be at the top of the podium: she has already finished second three times and third twice. After all, she had already been seriously injured in Val d’Isère. That is why she now says happily: “The love-hate relationship became great love.”

When Henrik Kristoffersen switched from Rossignol to the skis of his former arch-rival Marcel Hirscher in the spring of 2021, top experts such as Hans Knauss predicted “that Henrik will regularly ski one second faster in the future thanks to Hirscher’s know-how.” Kristofferson even won World Cup gold in the slalom last winter with the “Van Deer” bars. But now the “dream marriage” Kristofferson-Hirscher is in serious trouble – in the double giant slalom in Alta Badia, as well as in the slalom in Gurgl (7th place and in the giant in Val d’Isère (8th place), the Norwegian had a clear adjustment problem Therefore, the overambitious Viking had to settle for two seventh places on the “Gran Risa”. What makes the man with 30 individual World Cup victories particularly angry: on Sunday he lost 3.10 seconds to Marco Odermatt , on Monday it was 2.67 seconds.

Normally, even the absolute top stars need numerous attempts to reach the top 10 of the World Cup. Marco Odermatt placed himself in the top 10 at the highest level for the first time in the 21st race (7th Val d’Isère 2018), Beat Feuz achieved this milestone in his 29th World Cup appearance (10th 2011 in Kitzbühel). The performances of Franjo von Allmen (22) and Marco Kohler (26) in Val Gardena last week are all the more impressive: the two Bernese Oberlanders achieved their top ten debut in the third World Cup race. The Meiringer Kohler came eighth in the shortened Saslong descent, the Boltiger von Allmen came ninth in the Super-G and was able to complete another strong talent test the next day with a twelfth place in the original descent.

“Even the great Odermatt will fail because of Filip’s template,” cheered Atomic race boss Christian Höflehner last Sunday after the second run of his protégé Filip Zubcic. The Croatian even drove a fantastic race on the “Gran Risa” and defeated the third-placed Slovenian Zan Kranjec by no less than 2.26 seconds. In the end, it wasn’t enough for Zubcic to win his fourth World Cup as Marco Odermatt was up to the task. The man from Nidwalden proved in the most impressive way during the South Tyrolean tour that he is today the best ski racer in the world – in five races he achieved four podium finishes (two victories in Alta Badia, two third places in Val Gardena).

Dominik Paris sometimes hated the Val Gardena “Saslong”. With the exception of third place in 2014, the 110 kilo colossus, who grew up almost a 50-minute drive from Val Gardena in Ulten (It), has always surpassed the downhill podium on the Saslong. After finishing 42nd in his home race last year, Paris told the landlord of the Italian team hotel: “Next year I won’t come here anymore, starting further on this slope is completely pointless for me!” Paris then changed his mind and achieved on Saturday what he did not really believe in: his first victory on the “Saslong”!