After all, there is still a lot going on in the Kitzhof. One of the comparatively down-to-earth luxury hotels in Kitzbühel is located a little inconspicuously on an entrance road, but it has a special significance on the Hahnenkamm weekend. The Austrian Ski Association (ÖSV) traditionally resides here, it has been this way for many years, outside in the garden a red-white-red chamois is a reminder of the races in 2000. A time when you could still be quite sure that that from Saturday to Sunday one or two athletes would stay overnight in the hotel, who could take advantage of the good location: from the Kitzhof it is only a few minutes’ walk to the finish house, where the awards ceremony takes place – and to the London one Pub where racing drivers celebrate their victories.
Some Austrian was usually present at these celebratory events. Between 1996 and 2006 there were only two times where there was no Austrian downhill winner on the Streif. It was the golden era of a small nation that claimed to be better than the rest of the world in a few disciplines. Baking schnitzels is one of them, there are also New Year’s concerts, but above all it’s about driving down snow-covered mountains faster than anyone else. Above all in the supreme discipline of downhill and especially on the local Hahnenkamm.
It is therefore almost remarkable that the atmosphere in the team hotel this year is as if it were still the year 2000. The ÖSV still has a lot of officials, people in ski jackets with Austrian flags are running around everywhere, and sports legends like the Streif -Winner Fritz Strobl organizes sightseeing tours through the ski area on the Thursday before the race weekend. Being there is everything, that still applies in the Kitzhof and in the surroundings of Austria’s ski team. But the same now also applies to the skiers themselves.
So far this season, only one Austrian has been on the podium in the downhill and super-G disciplines
There are still a few Austrians taking part in the most important race of the year – but none of them have a realistic chance of finishing in the top places. “Coincidence” would be a good result, said the famous Hermann Maier a few days ago, Franz Bracke called the situation “sad”. And if you needed statistics in addition to words as proof of the misery of the great skiing nation of Austria, you got them in all the daily newspapers: So far this season, only one Austrian has been on the podium in the two fast disciplines of downhill and super-G, in the entire Last season only one ÖSV athlete managed to finish in the top three. Since 2017, only three Austrians have won downhills: Matthias Mayer and Max Franz have since retired – and Vincent Kriechmayr is currently injured.
The 33-year-old Upper Austrian is the only one who could have been expected to win on the Streif until he pulled his medial ligament in Wengen and is now working towards a start at the World Championships in his own country in Saalbach-Hinterglemm in February. Kriechmayr is the leader of a decimated downhill group whose status in the country is currently unenviable: Hardly any generation of skiers has ever fallen so short of expectations.
However, criticizing the current racing drivers is perhaps the wrong approach – the crisis at the ÖSV arose over many years. For decades, Austrian success has been based on internal competition between teammates. The generation around Maier, Strobl and Stephan Eberharter also raced against each other in every training session in order to qualify for the races next weekend – anyone who was too slow stayed at home. It was an almost archaic approach, but the question is whether it is still relevant today.
Switzerland, of all places, is now far ahead of the Austrians. This hurts the soul of the country even more
Stefan Eichberger, for example – who came second in the training run on Wednesday – was born in 2000. According to his own statement, he hasn’t seen the winning rides from back then, but he has seen the remnants. “It’s more pressure when you have to perform at your best in every training session, every week, in order to be there,” said Eichberger, who is only competing in his second season in the World Cup. “It would be important that the boys are let in early enough,” he recommended, and then talked about the Sword of Damocles: “The Swiss have done more of that in recent years.”
Switzerland, of all places, is now far ahead of its competitor from Austria, which hurts the country’s soul all the more. The outstanding Marco Odermatt leads a team in which there are flat hierarchies and young drivers like the talented Franjo von Allmen are not pushed away but encouraged. Fundamental reforms more than a decade ago, when Switzerland was in crisis, were crucial to today’s successes.
Word of this successful, modern approach has gotten around in the Ski World Cup, certainly among the many people rushing through the Kitzhof in the red-white-red jackets at the Streif race on the most important weekend of the year. Where another failure is likely to result in the realization in Austria that change is needed to revitalize a large ski nation.
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