Exactly 16 years ago she made her debut at the World Cup: will Gut-Behrami be queen again at the Lienzer Schlossberg?

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It is December 28, 2007. FC Aarau is fourth in the Super League, FC St. Gallen is in danger of relegation and Hakan Yakin has already scored 14 goals. Football still offers a lot to talk about after the first half of the season.

Ski racing cannot keep up – especially not for women, where for a long time only small sandwiches were baked. But even if no one suspects it, one of the greatest careers in ski history begins on this day in Lienz (Austria). 16-year-old Ticino Lara Gut participates in her first World Cup competition in Tyrol. She is the youngest in the starting field and wears number 60. At the first split she is sensationally 14th and for the final track everything looks perfect. Then she loses her strong starting position. “I rode way too directly in the bottom part, that was certainly not the right approach,” said the teenager at the finish. Good finishes 43rd and misses the second point.

“One of the last times”

Exactly 16 years have passed since that run. Gut-Behrami, as she has been called since 2018, is 32 and has been at the World Cup for half her life. It starts again in Lienz. “On the one hand, it feels like it’s been a long time. On the other hand, time also flew like lightning. It is certainly special to be here.”

She never thought about it during her career until now, Gut-Behrami says. “But now I realize this is one of the last times I will be here.” The background: Although she has already spoken publicly about her participation in the 2025 World Cup in Saalbach (Austria), Lienz only appears at the World Cup every two years.

The early pressure weighed on her

In any case: the backpack that Gut-Behrami carries with him after more than a decade and a half in the ski circus could not be fuller. Olympic champion, world champion, overall World Cup champion – she’s won it all. Gut-Behrami also collected enough negative experiences: she clashed with the association and journalists, received harsh criticism, sometimes got in her way and was seriously injured in 2017.

When asked about her early days at the World Cup, she once said: “I was still a child when I came to the World Cup. There were a lot of things I didn’t know how to deal with. I was lost sometimes. I just had to deliver, deliver, deliver.”

At 32, Gut-Behrami is in the latter part of her career. Still, she may be riding better than ever before – especially in the giant slalom. “I’m good on skis, everything is playful. I am very satisfied,” she says. No wonder, says Mauro Pini, coach of Petra Vlhova: “For me, Lara is one of the top favorites to win in Lienz, next to Petra, Shiffrin and Brignone.”

“The time with Lara was incredible”

Pini is also from Ticino. Most importantly, he coached Gut-Behrami together with her father Pauli when she came to the World Cup. Pini looks back on her early days: “The time with Lara was incredible, she got better every day. And this despite the fact that their foundation was already extremely solid. I remember how we trained with the Spanish Maria José Rienda Contreras. Lara was only 13 years old and was allowed to go to Bormio for three days. Although she was not nearly as physically advanced as Contreras, Lara only lost one and a half seconds per run.”

At the latest after her victory at the Trofeo Topolino, the most famous children’s ski competition in the world for eleven to fourteen year olds, Pini knew that if Gut-Behrami was not seriously injured, she would one day be one of the best. in the world.

Next match with Brignone

That’s how it happened. Pini hardly has any contact with Gut-Behrami anymore. He says: “It’s nice to see Lara riding so well.” In 2015 she won in Lienz, but in her six further attempts she never got better than tenth place. Why? Maybe because the slope is not that difficult. After all, it would be freezing at least in the first run – the track, softened by the rain, had become hard after clear nights. That’s up to Gut-Behrami.

Will she be crowned Queen of the Lienzer Schlossberg for the second time? Gut-Behrami has two giant slalom victories this season – exactly the same number as Federica Brignone (33). The Italian also made her World Cup debut in the same race 16 years ago. “I admire Fede because I have experienced firsthand what it means to still be here after so many years. At 20, skiing is fun, you travel the world, everything is wonderful. Once you’re 30, the fun is still there, but everything gets a little harder.”

Source : Blick