Yanick Gunsch (far right) caused a sensation.

South Tyrolean winter sports athlete creates podium sensation

There was a real surprise at the Ski Cross World Cup on the Reiteralm: Yanick Gunsch from South Tyrol sensationally raced onto the podium.

16 January 2025

From: dl

Up until then, 21st place in the World Cup had been the best Yanick Gunsch could achieve. On Thursday, the 28-year-old from Vinschgau made it onto the podium in third place! His semi-final appearance was already a surprise. Later in the final, it was clear that Gunsch would make it onto the podium because there were only three athletes left in the final run.

There, the South Tyrolean had to admit defeat to the German Florian Wilmsmann and the Frenchman Melvin Tschiknavorian. In the semi-finals, Gunsch got off to a dream start and was in the lead for a long time. In the end, he made it into the final round as second in his heat - also because he fought like a lion in the finish against the Frenchman Youri Duplessis Kergomard.

The other South Tyrolean, Dominik Zuech from Lana, was eliminated in the round of 16. Italy's top athlete Simone Deromedis failed in the quarter-finals.

A real fairy tale

Gunsch is a special winter sports athlete, as the ski crosser spends half the year working on a construction site. The Matscher attended the sports high school in Mals and will return to work as a bricklayer for a civil engineering company after the end of the season. Despite his strenuous job, Gunsch often has to keep fit in the evenings during these months with conditioning training.

That's why his story is like a fairy tale - also because he is celebrating his 28th birthday on Thursday. His girlfriend is the former ski racer Verena Gasslitter.

Dominik Zuech celebrates with Yanick Gunsch (back) on the Reiteralm.

By the way: There is another race on the Reiteralm on Friday. However, Gunsch will not be there because he "only" came 35th in the second qualifying competition on Tuesday. Only the best 32 are allowed to start in the race. Zuech (19th) managed this. But Gunsch will be able to get over it because of today's success.