Devastating conclusion "For your ass" - German slalom ace settles accounts with the Olympics
Linus Strasser has no chance of a podium place in the Olympic slalom. After the race, the German sums up the Games - and has nothing good to say about the 2026 Olympics.
17.02.2026, 09:34
17.02.2026, 09:47
dpa
Ninth place in the slalom and the missed happy ending to his Olympic career hardly seemed to interest Linus Strasser in sporting terms. The veteran left the finish stadium during the final slalom and gave a scathing summary of the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina with their ski offshoot in Bormio. "It's for shit. Let's call it what it is."
And the 33-year-old was not referring to the slalom at the end of the men's competition in Bormio. This was won by Loïc Meillard ahead of the Austrian Fabio Gstrein and Henrik Kristoffersen from Norway. The Swiss racer took his third medal and, after winning gold at the World Championships a year ago, underlined that he is currently the man for the important races in the slalom.
Strasser criticizes the Olympics as a "sterile thing"
However, rival Strasser had already realized long before the sometimes chaotic and snowy competition that this race would not be the highlight of his career. With grandstands at a great distance and the athletes separated from their fans and friends, the Olympics are significantly less emotional than the World Cup classics in Kitzbühel, Adelboden or Schladming, for example. "That's what you want to experience and not some sterile thing," said Strasser.
In Bormio, where only the men's alpine skiers - and only after their departure the ski mountaineers - were in action at these Winter Games spread across northern Italy, there was no sense of Olympic flair or togetherness.
The finish stadium, the press and officials' tents and other technical containers were actually set up right next to a cemetery in Bormio.
Strasser's review: "Beijing wasn't so bad"
"Bormio actually shows me that Beijing wasn't so bad," says the German. "With corona, it was all a bit exhausting, but we were in an Olympic village, ice channel athletes were there, it was a huge dining hall, it was togetherness." No spectators were allowed in China in 2022 due to the pandemic. But even that wasn't so bad compared to Bormio - in a core winter sports region.
You could tell from Strasser's analysis that he just wanted to get away from Bormio. He had already been annoyed with the Olympic organization in the first run when he was forbidden to give his good friend AJ Ginnis a proper welcome at the finish after his last race. "That's typical of the Olympics, isn't it?" he said. "Leave something for once ... But well, it's all for show, for sterility."
In ski racing, it is customary for athletes to be greeted by their companions at the finish line after their last runs. "Not worthy" of the athletes is such behaviour on the part of the Olympic organizers, criticized Strasser.
German medal slump since 1994 continues
By missing out on a medal - Strasser was more than a second off third place - the German men's skiing team's drought at the Olympics continues. Markus Wasmeier's double gold in 1994 was the last medal won by a male German ski racer at the Winter Games to date. But even such statistics didn't matter to Linus Strasser on this Monday.
The feelings of the Swiss are completely different. Loïc Meillard's Olympic gold in the slalom is the eighth medal won by Swiss skiers at these Games. This is the best result in Swiss Olympic history in alpine skiing.
