Changing nations is not always unproblematic: “I was insulted as a traitor!”

“The decisive factor for this change was the intrigues hatched against my father and me in the Vorarlberg regional association. At some point my parents got fed up,” recalls the 60-year-old, who as an all-rounder has achieved 46 World Cup victories (3 downhill, 9 super-G, 7 giant slalom, 16 slalom, 11 combination). In addition to the license Girardelli does not like the Luxembourgish people much. “My parents financed almost everything for the first four years. But because I was already able to achieve good results at the World Cup at the age of 16, I secured a number of top sponsors early on.”

The largest Girardelli fan club consisted of two women

At World Cup races in his old home country, the great opponent of Pirmin Zurbriggen (61) received a lot of hate. “When I went to a race in Austria, I was repeatedly insulted as a traitor by spectators along the side of the course. I still can’t understand it today because I never raced for a country, but first and foremost for myself.”

Girardelli’s successes did not cause alpine euphoria in his adopted homeland: “I was voted Luxembourg athlete of the year a few times and was also included in the circle of friends of Grand Duke Henri. But it was not the case that many Luxembourgers suddenly made a pilgrimage because of me to the ski races. During a ski broadcast, a banner was once seen with the inscription ‘Largest Girardelli Fan Club’. This fan club consisted of two women. One of them was my hairdresser…”

The rocky road of Ginnis

The reigning vice world slalom champion AJ Ginnis had to eat a lot of dirt after the change of country. The Athens-born “Zick-Zacker” competed in his first World Cup competitions for the USA, his mother’s home country. As an American, he also won the bronze medal at the Junior World Championships in 2015. But after two ACL tears, Ginnis was eliminated from the U.S. Ski Team by decision makers.

Ginnis then sought talks with the Greek association. The first meeting was sobering. “The chairman made it clear to me that the association would not spend money on a slalom rider like me until further notice.” AJ then found some donors himself, allowing him to hire two supervisors. The following example shows how small the budget was at Team Ginnis: “To save on hotel and flight costs, my trainers sometimes traveled the 2,700 kilometers from Austria to the training course in Kåbdalis, Sweden, by car without a long layover. It took them 40 hours to do it.”

Norwegians release Braathens FIS points

Since winning the silver World Cup medal, Ginnis has received 70,000 euros from the Greek association. “With this money we can only cover 25 percent of the team costs,” Ginnis reveals. It is unknown how much money Lucas Braathen receives from the Brazilian association. Because he has managed to secure a huge sponsor for his team in Red Bull, this does not play a major role.

Much more important for Braathen is that Norway has approved the association change. This means that he can make his World Cup comeback next winter with a cheap starting number.