"I wouldn't trade my career for an Olympic medal," says Worley

• Tessa Worley leaves for another season, with a small giant slalom crystal globe to defend.

  It starts this weekend, in Sölden.

• The Frenchwoman recovered from her emotions after her failure at the 2022 Olympics, the last of her career.

• She says she has no regrets and is focusing on the Méribel world championships in February 2023.

Fate owed that to Tessa Worley.

A month after her ultimate Olympic rout, the Frenchwoman won her second small globe in giant slalom last March in Méribel, a combination of a last run of madness and a monumental failure by Michaela Shiffrin.

Happy ending which allowed the experienced skier to spend a quiet summer, without even an ounce of regret in relation to the Olympics.

At 33 and on the eve of the start of the new season in Sölden, she intends to take pleasure in hurtling down the slopes, continue to win in Giant and, why not, finally achieve a perfect run in Super-G.

All with one and only objective: to shine at the Alpine Skiing World Championships… in Courchevel-Méribel.

Put on your skis, let's go.

How do you feel before this new season?

The summer was calm but studious.

I appreciate more and more the intense side during the winter months and which calms down strongly during the summer, where I need to recover from this effervescence.

I enjoyed working in peace.

We did a good job, I feel ready to face the winter.

I am happy to restart a season.

Is it the little globe that makes you enthusiastic?

When you come out of a successful season, it necessarily gives good hopes for the following year, even if long months have passed between the two, and you don't really know where you are after a preparation .

We have not yet been able to confront the others too much.

This is the specificity of Sölden, the first race.

This is the real first confrontation.

But it's sure that finishing the season on an excellent note, like in Méribel, was great and it allowed me to have a better summer.

Especially since we had to remobilize behind the Olympics, which you yourself described as a disappointment.

How do you manage to remobilize so quickly and go for a final run like in Méribel?

What I remember from my last season is the most recent thing, so the good runs, the successes.

The Games are obviously part of this season, but I take more positives from them than a feeling of failure.

Compared to the Games, I think that I accepted to experience the disappointment, to tell myself that it was my last and that suddenly, I will never be able to claim this dream again.

I made a little mourning of this objective.

My staff, my entourage, all were great.

They were also affected, it was a group objective.

But they also immediately remobilized, they were great in the speech, they motivated me.

All these people who have a confidence even stronger than the confidence that I have in myself have helped me.

Inside @TessaWorley's 🧳!

A few days before the resumption of the World Cup, FFS TV takes you to a 1st episode at 💙 the preparation of a champion.

Full report ▶ https://t.co/EdaHcTF0Fc@Agence_du_Sport @CE_RhoneAlpes @Somfyfr @Dep_74 #LePool #GBCmontagne pic.twitter.com/3C316Nf3zC

– FFS - French Ski Federation (@FedFranceSki) October 16, 2022

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What did they tell you?

What competitors need to hear in these times.

That I'm capable of winning races, of doing great races, that I have no regrets to have.

This is also what helped me: telling myself that there are no regrets in relation to the Games.

I prepared as I wanted, I arrived on my race in the state in which I had planned to be.

It just didn't work out, it's sport, I accepted it.

It's also something that doesn't necessarily define your career.

There are champions or Olympic medalists very little in sight on world cups or world championships during a whole career, you, it is rather the opposite, finally.

Absolutely.

Longevity is one of the prides I have vis-à-vis my career, adaptation, too, over time.

To continue to be present at the highest level today.

Winning is great, but what's even stronger is repeating.

It's something that drives me, to continue to always have the same goals despite the passage of time.

Every career is different, every path is different.

Mine will not be marked by Olympic medals but my personal pride will not come out diminished.

I know what I'm worth, it's important.

Would you trade that career for an Olympic title?

No.

Without hesitation.

D-Day is a day, an emotion.

Me, I like the feeling of construction, of regularity in victory.

What keeps me going is the questioning despite the victory.

What can I do to ski faster?

How can I stay among the best?

This kind of things.

Stay among the best, or even do a double on the small globe of the Giant?

(Laughs) Already, I want to experience the pressure and the intensity of the races with pleasure.

That's what worked for me last year.

Live the challenge with pleasure and not submit to it.

Being able to play the victories.

On the Giant, it's played over two legs, so we know that by staying in contact in the first, everything is possible in the second.

It's nice.

But I also have a second discipline that makes me really want to progress, where I was just off the podium at the end of the season in Super-G.

I want to continue to see how far I can progress.

I'm really not far off, but I haven't done a fully successful run in my career.

I want to see what it can give when I fully succeed in a race in Super-G.

And there are the world championships at home.

Of course !

Beyond the sporting aspect, there is the perspective of being in France and sharing that with the public, which motivates me a lot.

It's something unique that you can't do anywhere else.

It's the year of the world championships in France in a year where I'm capable of performing well.

It's up to me to put everything in place until February to seize my chance.

It can be not bad to confirm the new impetus of the French alpine…

Yes.

The men's teams are ultra-strong and well anchored in the hierarchy, and even if for the women it's a little harder, we feel that something is happening.

We are on the right path.

I am optimistic for the years to come.

At the end of last season, all the girls had their best result.

Are you in leader mode compared to this youth who is pointing the tip of his nose?

I like to share a lot, so I'm happy to be able to bring my experience if the girls need it.

But I'm not one to impose myself.

It happens very naturally.

But I'm used to it, almost by default, because there were fewer girls, there were less good seasons... It had almost imposed itself on me in the past, but the real role of leader is is to exchange, give and take from others, too!

Training with young people who do things that I don't do yet, it's enriching.

For instance ?

Technically, there are developments.

Girls arrive with little qualities that I need to develop.

Hence the importance of group life and not looking down on anyone.

Anyway, that's not a leader, especially not in a sport where, race after race, everything is called into question.

It ends up making you humble.

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• Sport

• Tessa Worley

• Alpine skiing

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