The last time there were two Austrians in the top three in the downhill was five years ago, and back then it was even a double victory. In January 2019, Ramona Siebenhofer won in Cortina ahead of Nicole Schmidhofer. For Venier it was the first downhill podium since February 2020 in Crans Montana; in March of the previous year she was also on the podium in the Super-G in Kvitfjell.
Ariane Rädler, the third-best Austrian, also made it into the top ten with seventh place (+0.64). There was no top spot for Hütter this time; the Styrian had to settle for 16th place (1.40). Christine Scheyer (1.65) came 20th immediately ahead of Sabrina Maier (1.97), Michelle Niederwieser (2.24) surprised with 23rd place, Christina Ager (2.39) came 25th. Also for Lena Wechner (29th). ./2.90) there were World Cup points, Emily Schöpf (32./3.13) narrowly missed out on these.
Puchner is in third place
Mirjam Puchner also had a place on the podium in Altenmarkt.
This year it started up again.”
“I’ve been having a really hard time lately, but this year I’ve gotten things going again,” said Venier in an ORF interview. “I didn’t plan much when I started. Just skiing well, I succeeded.” Puchner was also satisfied: “I tried to keep the ski steady, it worked quite well. You have to put pressure on the goal here, the snow is cool.”
Hütter, on the other hand, still had the race from the previous day fresh in his bones and in his head. “Today what happened yesterday just came out. I hardly slept at all, my knees were still shaking in the morning. That shouldn’t be an excuse. I enjoyed the day yesterday, but I just rode badly today. I had in my head ‘you rode well yesterday, please don’t hurt yourself today’.”
Winner Goggia, who was only ranked 55th and last in the Super-G on Friday after a serious mistake, was relieved. “I felt bad on the skis yesterday, it was completely different to today. I missed a goal in training, so I’m happy to have a good finish here today. You have to keep balance, yesterday was just a bad day. You have to put that aside and look forward.”
