Of course, Lena Dürr knew the final fade-in very well, but the name was new. Germany’s currently most successful skier was the leader in the shady finish stadium at Semmering; only one runner could take victory away from her. Basically, Dürr’s entire career follows a similar pattern: for years she has been the best of almost everyone, but there have always been two superfigures who were close to perfection, at least closer than Dürr or anyone else in the history of Alpine slalom.
Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova are two formative figures in the career of the 33-year-old German, who would probably have a lot more than one World Cup victory to her name by now if she had become a ski racer in a different time period. But now the picture has changed: Shiffrin celebrated Christmas at home a few days ago with a serious injury and is currently not competing in the World Cup. And Vlhova gave interviews in civilian clothes at Semmering in which she talked about taking things slowly because her knee was not yet ready for World Cup slopes after a torn cruciate ligament suffered in January.
So, is it finally time for the hard-working, consistent, patient Lena Dürr to earn deserved victories in the Alpine Ski World Cup? As that final fade-in showed: no.
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In the end, we took second place at Semmering, once again. With the extremely clear gap of 1.75 seconds, highlighted in poisonous green, a mark that would have been remarkable even for Shiffrin and Vlhova, a young athlete whose career is just beginning won on Sunday. But Zrinka Ljutic, 20, is making perfect use of the current gap in the technical disciplines.
The Croatian celebrated her first World Cup victory on Sunday, and it probably won’t be the last. Her helmet and skis suggest that some of the biggest sponsors see her as a future face of the Ski World Cup, and she already has what it takes to dominate. “I was totally relaxed at the start,” said Ljutic, whose father – a former marine engineer from Banja Luka – is also her coach. This is one of the reasons why Ljutic reminds many in Croatia of Janica Kostelic, who was once introduced to skiing by her father Ante and together with her brother Ivica and who achieved the last Croatian World Cup victory until Sunday in 2006.
In addition to Dürr, the DSV only has Emma Aicher as a guarantee for positive reports
Ljutic is one of the new, likeable faces of the World Cup, who is urgently looking for identification figures in the absence of Shiffrin and Vlhova. It is questionable how the established companies will deal with this challenge. The same thing that applies to Dürr also applies to runners like the Austrian Katharina Liensberger, who came third on Sunday, but with some respect. This didn’t seem to worry her; Dürr was extremely satisfied with her runs at Semmering, as she was with finishing the year second in the Slalom World Cup. The hunt for a small ball doesn’t play a big role, she said, just like the World Championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm in February: “I want to tackle each race individually, everything else really has to be right,” explained Dürr in the ZDF interview .
That sounds a bit defensive at times, as the technicians in the German Ski Association team are the only ones who can have reasonable hope for greater success. For the men, the picture is unchanged: Linus Straßer has a number of slalom classics in front of him in January (Adelboden, Wengen, Kitzbühel, Schladming) that basically suits him. However, he first has to overcome an acute form crisis. And in the speed area there was the next failure at the weekend: Simon Jocher came in a strong 13th in the downhill run in Bormio, but after the race he announced a painful, possibly long-term injury: he bruised his right heel bone during a jump .
That leaves the duo of Dürr and Emma Aicher as guarantors of positive reports. Aicher, for example, finished eighth at Semmering with a strong second run and was able to equalize her season record in the slalom: two retirements, but also two top 10 placements.
Unlike Dürr, Aicher belongs to the generation that only sees the end of the decade of the all-powerful Mikaela Shiffrin, and one could definitely draw hope from that. However, there are many signs that the future will not necessarily be easier: the relaxed, joyful way in which Ljutic also explained that she would like to “train even better, ski better, find a better setup” in the coming months further evidence that a very ambitious driver only had her first of many big appearances at Semmering.
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