Alpine Ski World Cup: Greeks, Cannucks and a plucked hen – Sport

Alpine World Ski Championships often feel like a feverish dream for the athletes: they talk about it all winter long, say they don’t even think about it before secretly doing it or not. And then the two weeks of the World Cup rush by so quickly, like most recently in the French Alps, that one wonders if that even happened: Silver winners from Greece, crazy Canadians and plucked Austrians, among others? Time for a review.

Greek gods

On the podium with crowdfunding and college friends: AJ Ginnis, 28.

(Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

Ski racer Alexander John Ginnis, nickname “AJ”, played it safe. Not only did he rely on being in the best condition of the day and perfectly sharpened skis, he also worshiped “all twelve” Greek gods before he threw himself onto the dark slope in Courchevel. It obviously helped: Only Henrik Kristoffersen was faster than Ginnis in this wild World Cup slalom. It was the first significant medal in winter sports for Greece, under whose flag Ginnis now sails: he was born in Athens in 1994.

Of course, that was also a gift for the marketing department of the world association Fis. There they like to spread the (partially tenable) thesis that winter sports span the world. But the truth is: Ginnis spent many free minutes of his childhood on the almost 2500 meter high Mount Parnassus (which is dedicated to the god of spring Apollon), two and a half hours drive from Athens, on at least 40 kilometers of slopes. His father ran a ski shop there, and the son apparently carried the dream of becoming a ski racer with him from an early age. His friends thought that was absurd, and his parents supported him. They first moved to Kaprun and later to the USA, their mother’s homeland, or to the alpine training center in Vermont. Ginnis made it onto the US slalom team – until the association cut funding in 2018.

Ginnis understood that after five knee surgeries alone, to be followed by a sixth. But if he had to make ends meet, then at least for the country that had kindled his love of skiing. The 28-year-old was raising money, hiring two college friends to coach him, clinging to the belief that he could make it close to the top of the world again. And now: Second place in the World Cup, even silver at the World Championships – a sign of perseverance? Ginnis joked that you’d have to be pretty crazy to keep at it that long. Like back then, as a child on Mount Parnassus.

Crazy Canucks

Alpine Ski World Championships: Laurence St-Germain on the way to the world title - her first podium visit in slalom ever.

Laurence St-Germain on the way to the world title – her first podium visit in slalom ever.

(Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)

Speaking of crazy: “They’re really crazy,” said double world champion Marco Odermatt from Switzerland when asked about the success of the Canadians. According to Odermatt, he has no idea what they have been doing for decades: reliably dashing out of the shadows of outsiders at major events. This time James Crawford won the Super-G that everyone had meant for Odermatt, Cameron Alexander was third in the downhill, third in the team event and gold in the slalom by Laurence St-Germain. The 28-year-old had slipped out of support before, studied computer science in Vermont, worked her way back into the sport, but was never better than sixth in the World Cup. Then she beat Mikaela Shiffrin and the rest of the world in Méribel.

Where does this talent come from, not seeing the risks at a major event, but the opportunities? “We’ve got a lot of pressure on ourselves, but not as much pressure as the big favourites,” said St-Germain. “And we know that at these major events we get the most attention at home. We can achieve a lot with a success there.” Canada’s alpine team, you have to know that, always has money worries, the banker Tim Dattels, who is also the head of the supervisory board in Canada’s ski association, donated around one million euros of his fortune before this winter to the Alpine, Para and Skicross departments. This reduces the sum that many Canadian athletes have to contribute each winter from around 20,000 to 14,000 euros, said Dattels. In this respect, the World Cup was not the dumbest advertisement.

jumping hens

Alpine Ski World Championship: Neither fast nor beautiful: Johannes Strolz struggles with the Super-G in the alpine combination

Neither fast nor beautiful: Johannes Strolz struggles with the Super-G in the alpine combination

(Photo: Francois-Xavier Marit/AFP)

The fourth are the first losers, according to the code of practice for major performance fairs in sport. The Austrian Fritz Strobl once invented the metal medal on the occasion of his fourth place in the 1997 World Cup downhill. He appeared at the team celebration with a flattened beer can around his neck. The sheet metal medal was also in demand in France in the Austrian Ski Association (ÖSV), the ÖSV athletes were fourth seven times, in this statistic they were far ahead. In the logic of the Fis medal table, however: no gold medal – the first time in 36 years at a World Cup – three silver, four bronze. Makes eighth place, or according to the usual modest Austrian standards: not first place.

As usual, the analyzes of all those involved were golden: “Then I’ll fly over the jump like a plucked hen,” said Johannes Strolz, who was an Olympic champion a year ago and was badly beaten this time in the combination. To the whole whereness heard of course: seven medals, that’s just as many as the Swiss, who led the medal table this time with three gold medals; only the Norwegians (nine) won more plaques. “We count Americans,” said ÖSV President Roswitha Stadlober, just the number of medals. Oh sure!

German ambiguity

Alpine World Ski Championships: Anyone who wins gold is quickly pumped up to larger than life - this is also the experience of parallel world champion Alexander Schmid.

Anyone who wins gold is quickly pumped up to larger than life – this is also the experience of parallel world champion Alexander Schmid.

(Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa)

Speaking of plucked: In the Fis medal ranking, the German Ski Association (DSV) was even ahead of its beloved neighbors from the ski nation this time: Alexander Schmid’s world championship title in the parallel race alone outweighed the seven non-gold medals of the Austrians. Because Lena Dürr also won bronze in the slalom, DSV sports director Wolfgang Maier diagnosed “an overachievement of the target”, at least as far as the medal wishes were concerned. But, as feared, the World Cup had also exposed the weaknesses behind it, and Maier saw a few too many of them for his taste. With the exception of Thomas Dreßen, the men’s speed team has lost touch with the “absolute world class”. And among the women, there were huge gaps behind Dürr and Kira Weidle, with a few exceptions – especially in giant slalom, whose turns lay the foundation for almost all other disciplines. “We can’t find a way, although we’ve been trying to change something for years,” said Maier. The only thing that helps is patience, maybe even a prayer to Olympus.

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