The long march to the top of the world will probably take a little longer.

The chance to “get 300 million Chinese on snow and ice”, ie to get them enthusiastic about winter sports, is a “unique opportunity” and should be seized.

At least that's what Johan Eliasch, the new President of the International Ski Federation (Fis) thought.

Achim Dreis

Sports editor.

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Eliasch quoted none other than Xi Jinping, the President of China, who had proclaimed the achievement of 300 million skiers as a five-year plan, and verbally justified the decision to host the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

Two stars at the top

The only Chinese woman who made it onto the starting list of the Alpine Ski World Cup was 26-year-old Yueming Ni.

This Saturday she started the race on the Rettenbach Glacier high above Sölden as the last of the 75 participants from 24 nations - and at least reached the finish on the difficult slope with the dreaded steep slope, but only after 1: 13.97 minutes.

66th place. Last in the ranking, 11.17 seconds back.

At the top there were two superstars of the scene who follow their own plans and don't like to be talked into - especially not by state presidents. The American Mikaela Shiffrin won in a total time of 2: 07.22 seconds, just ahead of the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami (+0.14 seconds), who was still very thin after the first round. The overall World Cup winner Petra Vlhova from Slovakia, who already had a time deficit of 1.30 seconds, followed well behind.

On a bright sunny day with the best winter sports conditions, women runners from many other countries with a certain alpine skiing tradition followed closely behind: Austria was fourth with double world champion Katharina Liensberger, Norwegian Marie Theres Tviberg followed in fifth ahead of Meta Hrovat (Slovenia ), Valerie Grenier (Canada) and Tessa Worley (France).

Far from a place in the top eight, the best German, Marlene Schmotz, crossed the finish line in 28th place.

But although she was 4.32 seconds behind Mikaela Shiffrin, the 27-year-old wasn't even dissatisfied with the result.

After a protracted injury break due to a torn cruciate ligament, Schmotz competed in a World Cup race for the first time since January 2020. And had defined reaching the second round as a goal. She succeeded in doing this as the 25th of the first run. In the second, she slowed herself down a little on the steep slope. But that didn't change the fact that she reconnected and fulfilled her daily schedule.

Until the season highlight in February, she now has enough time to get closer to the top ten positions that she had already achieved before her momentous injury.

The Olympic Games will then be held in a city without mountains, with new ski slopes in a hinterland where it rarely snows - but is at least cold enough to produce snow artificially.

A unique opportunity.

Yueming Ni should be there.