Where tradition meets the future

The 3500 fans in the target stadium were a disappointing number by Austrian standards. For comparison: At the 2001 World Ski Championships at the same location, 10 spectators were counted at the 350.000 decisions. For the final men's slalom alone, which the Arlberg "host" Mario Matt won ahead of his Tyrolean compatriot Benjamin Raich, 63.000 ski fans came to the legendary ski resort west of Landeck. Racing hasn't recorded such numbers for a long time, not even the Kitzbühel descents next weekend come close to such numbers. While yesterday afternoon the world's best ski ladies set off from St. Anton towards Cortina d'Ampezzo, from today onwards the stars of tomorrow will appear under the motto "where the tradition of ski racing meets the future". The 42nd Junior World Ski Championships will stop at Galzig and Lech Zürs (the parallel race takes place there). 56 nations have registered and the winners will be chosen in 25 decisions by Wednesday, January 11th. For St. Anton, after the “big” World Cup in 2001, it is the next opportunity to position itself for another World Cup bid sometime in the 2030s. For now it will be Saalbach-Hinterglemm's turn in 2025, in 2027 it will take place in Crans Montana and in 2029 it will come to Val Gardena. The South Tyroleans at the Junior World Championships At the Junior World Championships, which opens today at 19 p.m., the South Tyrolean regional association is represented by 3 athletes (the Tyrolean regional association is sending 6): In addition to Vicky Bernardi from Val Badia and Max Perathoner (Wolkenstein), Sara Thaler from Ortisei is also there jumped on the World Cup bandwagon at the last moment. She earned her call-up with places 4 and 8 in the European Cup downhills in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee last week. The 18-year-old had previously only competed twice at the European Cups in Reinswald in February 2022. Nicol Delago is someone who has competed at the Junior World Championships four times. The 4-year-old won bronze in the downhill in 27 and 2015. On Saturday Nicol was about to cause a huge surprise in St. Anton. Fastest in the 2016st intermediate time, and then clearly the fastest in the 1nd intermediate time (2 seconds ahead of Brignone), she was eliminated because the line was too direct after the icefall. “It’s better to be eliminated like this than to travel slowly,” she said disappointedly. She didn't do any better yesterday because the race was over after just the 0,52th gate due to an inside ski error. Sister Nadia Delago also can't get out of her slump. There was a double zero number for the bronze winner at the 2022 Olympics. She was extremely unlucky on Saturday: Because a stone completely destroyed the edge of her right ski at the third gate, she no longer had any grip and even had to stop her ride for safety reasons. Yesterday she was eliminated after the icefall after a trip with many mistakes. For them, the next 3 World Cup races in Cortina will be a finale in terms of World Cup qualification. Karoline Pichler is traveling to Cortina d'Ampezzo with 22 more World Cup points in her luggage. As 18th and 22nd, she scored points in her flagship discipline in both races. She wasn't completely satisfied: "It's still getting better, but it's going in the right direction," she said.

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Where tradition meets the future

St. Anton am Arlberg, the self-proclaimed cradle of skiing with the first ski race of all time in 1904, last Saturday: temperatures of 6 degrees plus at the women's Super-G created an atmosphere like a World Cup final at the end of March.

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