Lara Gut-Behrami regularly shines at the season opener in Sölden. In the absence of the team leader, the gap that she will one day leave behind becomes apparent.
Lara Gut-Behrami has won the giant slalom on the Rettenbach glacier three times so far. Quite a few people believed that last year's overall World Cup winner could win the season opening for the fourth time, which would have made her the sole record winner. But the subjunctive mood reveals that things turned out differently.
Gut-Behrami decided to forgo the start after the run-in. She was not 100 percent fit and the risk of injury was too great. A flu had weakened the 33-year-old from Ticino during her recent preparations. Added to this were knee problems that had been affecting her since a knock at the training camp in the Chilean Andes.
"It's hard to miss out on the start. Because I love this race. I always love racing. But I don't want an injury to end my career. I want to decide for myself when it's done," she said through tears.
Rast saves Swiss honor
In the absence of the team leader, the Swiss team failed to impress in the Ötztal, with one exception. Camille Rast was the only Swiss-Ski athlete to show her potential. The 25-year-old from Valais improved by four positions in the second run and finished as the best Swiss athlete in 12th place. Her best result to date on the Rettenbach glacier was 29th place, and she was correspondingly positive after the race: "I hadn't really expected that much, especially as the wet and soft snow wasn't my conditions."
The second best Swiss skier was Michelle Gisin in 22nd place. The 30-year-old from Engelberg lost a lot of time due to two mistakes on the steep slope and missed out on a much better result. She was accordingly annoyed: "It's brutally frustrating. A place in the top 10 would have been perfectly feasible today." But the path she has taken is the right one and the feeling is good.
Wendy Holdener completed her first race after recovering from an ankle injury. Like Simone Wild, the slalom specialist narrowly made it through to the second run, but was only able to benefit slightly from her good starting number and climbed four places to 25th. But I'll take the start of the season. It was definitely a challenge. The conditions were difficult and I was more nervous than expected."
The bleak picture without Gut-Behrami
The last time the Swiss team didn't have an athlete in the top 10 in Sölden was ten years ago. What sounds like a disaster at first glance turns out to be a logical result and a reflection of the recent past on closer inspection. Without Gut-Behrami, the Swiss record in the Ötztal would have been significantly worse in recent years.
When Gut-Behrami won last year, Mélanie Meillard was the second-best Swiss racer in 17th place. Two years earlier, there was an even bigger gap between the second-placed Ticino racer and Andrea Ellenberger in 24th place.
SDA