VIENNA (AP) — Switzerland 11, Austria 0.
The contrast between the two rival powerhouses of ski racing could hardly be bigger heading into the Alpine world championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, which start Tuesday.
The men’s team of host nation Austria has failed to win any of the 25 races so far this World Cup season.
The Swiss men, though, have celebrated 11 victories and added 14 more podium results.
Of course, they have serial winner Marco Odermatt. The Olympic giant slalom champion has raised his career tally of World Cup victories to 44 by racking up seven this season – just as many as the entire Austrian men’s team has podium results.
Odermatt, the dominator of men’s ski racing for over three seasons now, arrives at the worlds as the downhill and GS titleholder from 2023 and is in the prime of his career at 27.
But the Swiss team is so much more than just Odermatt.
It saw four other racers climb onto the top of a World Cup podium this season, and all were first-time winners: Justin Murisier and Alexis Monney in downhill, Franjo von Allmen in super-G, and Thomas Tumler in giant slalom.
So, Switzerland has a fresh generation of youngsters coming through after Odermatt?
Not quite. While that holds true for the 25-year-old Monney and 23-year-old von Allmen, Murisier at 32 and Tumler at 35 are well into their thirties.
And don’t forget Loic Meillard, the runner-up to Odermatt in the overall standings last season. The all-event skier is yet to win a race this campaign but had five podium results.
When Saalbach-Hinterglemm hosted the World Cup finals last March, Meillard won the GS and placed second in the super-G, which was won by his Swiss teammate Stefan Rogentin.
They all blossom in a tightly knit team of friends, on and off the slopes.
“To live and share all these emotions with good friends is so much more (fun),” Odermatt wrote on Instagram last week, posting a video and photos from celebrations with his teammates after he won the super-G in Kitzbuehel.
“We certainly have a super team with a lot of talent, and a training staff which always goes all in,” Odermatt said. “Each success pushes the others on the team. In the end, we all want to be the fastest of the Swiss team. Those dynamics are great.”
Leading the downhill, super-G and GS standings again, after winning those titles last season, Odermatt is the Swiss men’s main gold medal hope at the worlds.
It’s hard to single out a racer carrying similar expectations within the Austrian team, which lacks a standout performer.
Marco Schwarz had that role when he went past Odermatt to briefly top the overall standings two months into the 2023-24 season. But a severe knee injury following a downhill crash in Bormio on the course to be used at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics ended the Austrian’s campaign prematurely.
Schwarz returned a year later, in December 2024, and has been gradually working his way back, with a sixth place the best result in his 10 starts prior to the worlds.
The closest to a victory for the Austrian team this season came when Vincent Kriechmayr finished runner-up in the super-G races in Bormio and Wengen. However, he hasn’t raced since hurting his right knee in the Jan. 18 Lauberhorn downhill.
Kriechmayr won gold in both downhill and super-G at the 2021 worlds in Italy and bronze and silver, respectively, two years earlier in Sweden.
Patrick Feurstein also had a second-place finish in a giant slalom, but Austrian has no top-three result in downhill so far.
The same applied to slalom as well until Manuel Feller, last year’s discipline champion, and Fabio Gstrein finally made the podium in Schladming last week in the ninth and final race before the worlds.
“We are highly motivated, we will finally show what we can do,” said two-time Olympic champion and slalom silver medalist Johannes Strolz. “The entire team has been undervalued this season. We will do everything we can to have a say at the world championships.”
Regardless of the results at the upcoming worlds, Austria will remain ahead of Switzerland at least in the all-time medal count.
The Austrian men have won 56 gold medals and 165 in total since the worlds were first held in 1931. With 35 golds and 113 overall, eternal rival Switzerland faces a gap that even Odermatt and company cannot close anytime soon.
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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
Eric Willemsen on X: https://x.com/eWilmedia
Eric Willemsen, The Associated Press
