Interim assessment of the skiers: Consistently quite good - but only on the "waiting places"

It feels like the Alpine World Cup season has only just begun.

At least in Europe.

Val d'Isère, Gröden, St. Moritz, Alta Badia and now, this Thursday, Madonna di Campiglio, the night slalom, in which the finish area guest Alberto Tomba will probably attract more attention than the protagonists between the poles.

In fact, the first World Cup race took place almost two months ago.

After that, however, there were a lot of cancellations and discussions about scheduling and skiing in times of the energy crisis, before sport is the focus again - and before the short Christmas break the first balances are drawn up.

The alpine men's team of the German Ski Association did well.

Only in two of the eleven races so far did no DSV athlete finish in the top ten.

It's consistently good, but not very good given the lack of a podium finish.

The most reliable athlete so far is Alexander Schmid.

In the four giant slaloms of this Alpine World Cup season, the man from the Allgäu was never worse than eighth, but never better than fifth.

The fact that the 29-year-old ski racer from SC Fischen is at the top of every race has something to do with a curse that he now slowly wants to finally conquer.

Schmid followed for a while not being able to confirm a good performance in the first run and then in the second run.

"The last step is just missing"

As a result, he missed a medal at the 2021 World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo, and a top result in some World Cup races.

Also on Sunday at the first giant slalom in Alta Badia he had a good starting position for the final round with fourth place, but then he made a few minor mistakes and finished eighth.

A day later he turned the tables, for the second time this season he improved a few places in the second race.

For head coach Christian Schwaiger, it is “only a matter of time” before the Allgäu native is where he belongs based on his talent.

In the top seven of the start list and a regular guest on the podium.

Schwaiger has a little more work to do with Schmid's colleagues from the downhill team.

The dip in performance from last season seems to have been overcome.

After the good winter of the 2021 World Cup, Romed Baumann admits that they wanted to “go one step further”, but that is not working yet.

After all, they share the job of making top ten results fairly.

In Lake Louise it was Andreas Sander and Thomas Dreßen once, Baumann twice in Beaver Creek and Josef Ferstl in the first of two downhills in Gröden, who even achieved his best career result in this discipline with sixth place.

“That is our claim,” says Schwaiger.

At least.

"We're on the lookout, but that doesn't really get us any further," says Ferstl.

"It's just missing that last step so we can really celebrate."

But first they have to do it again without Thomas Dreßen.

The Kitzbühel winner, who has to take a break again until January due to a torn muscle fiber and, alongside Simon Jocher, is the second failure in the German downhill team, was "the draft horse" again, despite the two-year absence after hip and knee operations, at least in training Bauman.

Others set the standard

However, Dreßen also found out that downhill skiing has developed further.

Especially in the technical passages, Schwaiger notes.

You can no longer "smear" into the curves like two or three years ago, you have to drive them.

That's probably why those athletes who do well in giant slalom are setting the benchmark this season.

The Norwegian Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who won three of the four downhill runs, has not only received a complete education in all disciplines, but is at least among the extended world class in giant slalom.

And the Swiss Marco Odermatt is the best in this discipline.

The development also encourages pure downhill skiers to invest more time in giant slalom.

The Austrians have been doing this for many years, as have the Germans, but it is not so easy to make up for deficits.

The multiple Kitzbühel winner Dominik Paris even opted for a giant slalom start at the start in Sölden - and did not do so badly.

But that didn't help him much for the descent so far.

His best result so far was 20th place, in the two Val Gardena races the South Tyrolean was only 40th and 42nd. The Germans, on the other hand, complain about their "waiting places" at a high level.