Reportage from the Ski-WM-Ort Saalbach-Hinterglemm: Austria hopes and fears-sport

Josef Gensbichler was already there at the time. The Skination Austria proudly looked up at her racing drivers – and up: where, where it is now crowded for medals, Gensbichler once managed the Hintermaisalm. The 61-year-old grew up on the Zwölferkogel, and hardly anyone knows the Skiberg in Saalbach-Hinterglemm as much as he is. His Sachertorte is still an insider tip for the locals in the Glemmtal. Also because Gensbichler served his pastries and punch up at that time: in 1991, when Stephan Eberharter caught two cream days at the first World Championships in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, won double gold for Austria and put the Alpine country into an ecstasy, of which the older ones still tell today.

Now that times of the sour cream indicate in ski Austria.

During Saalbach-Hinterglemm there is a not so tender hint of nostalgia in these first days of the Alpine World Ski World Championships. If you walk through the town, you will sooner or later discover the blurred films from once on a canvas, find signed autograph cards on the walls of the restaurants or just encounter contemporary witnesses of this more than three decades old Austrian winter fairy tales, which the Salzburger news have dedicated a special issue with articles from back then, which, as it is said, “legendary World Cup”. And because the skiing in Austria enjoys a status to the present, just as football elsewhere, this is now about the very big questions in view of the tenth home championship.

Tens of thousands of skiing husbands have been popping slopes and ski huts for days – and some come to a stop at Josef Gensbichler, who has now handed over the Hintermaisalm to his son and has moved up a little further, where he has been running the Winkleralm for ten years. It is at lunchtime on Tuesday, Gröstl and Germ dumplings are available, Gerda and Linda have traveled from the Ötztal and fortify themselves for the first World Cup race later in the afternoon, the team parallel competition that Austria won at the 2022 Olympics. And this time, after 15 red and white and red podium in the World Cup winter; Only 15? “I’m rather skeptical,” says Gerda, 29 “Mei”, says her ski friend Linda, 31, “I would be happy anyway if we get a medal today.”

Austrians, land on land, landaba, it is their own that they have the word Medal Express in an inimitable way, with a mixture of awe and prayer, as if it were much more than just racing.

Letting the church in the village rarely harm in sports, also in Austria, where, like in Germany, large political thunderstorms move the nation. For the time being, the sunny Saalbach acts like a place of longing, where sporty dramas may be expected, but in doubt countless après-ski-Stadel is available for rinsing down if an American or a Swiss party will hire the esi party in the ski stadium. What still comes up with little leisure and a danger: that one day more in the frustration with a DJ rouse-flatter ends with the Wolfgang-Ambros classic “Long live the central cemetery”.

If you like, the Glemmtal is a place of pilgrimage in this country for the next ten days, where skiing sometimes still suggests religious features, where quite a few look up to the apparently powerful up there and their hands sometimes fold for prayer when manuel Feller, Cornelia Hütter, Katharina Liensberger or Vincent Kriechmayr from the starting house into the slope, from the chapel of skiing.

When looking at the latest election results in Austria, you almost want to start prayer yourself; Not only because the election winner, the right -wing populist FPÖ, recently gave more than guessing that the party is less important to the party. Thanks to the sky, Austria’s relevant newspapers are still printed, the sports parts currently comprise as many pages as in Germany at the domestic European Championship. And if you browse into the gazettes, you will currently find less that the pressure on the press is increasing – but that Austria’s newspapers can still exert pressure at least in skiing.

The relevant daily publications not only dealt with the most important vocabulary of the skin before the World Cup, but largely with the most important vocabulary: the Medalalthough the plural in Austria is traditionally preferred. The Kronen Zeitung In three of her biggest texts, for example, in the headings already devoted himself to the central topic: “Medal at the start? That is certainly the big goal “,” We are already making a golden one here! “, And” We have never been at home without gold “, you can read there. The Salzburger news Packed – also in the Tuesday edition – an expectation: “Austria cheered over 7 medals” titled the sheet on the sports page one. It is not a look back at great times of skin, but the forecast of the editorial team, possibly garnished with one or the other desired idea up to the ski god, if there is.

At the top of the mountain not far from the middle station, the Winkleralm can be easily accessible from the Zwölferkogelbahn, at the scene of the World Cup racing process. Many ski fans and drivers will come to Josef Gensbichler here, crouch and warm up with mulled wine and Kaspress dumpling soup. Ten “competitions” are still what it says in Austria, 30 medals are still to be awarded. And who would not treat them to them, at their home World Cup, three, four, oh, would also like to do seven medals or more, as in 1991, when the number one skin at the time was eleven times on the podium and won five gold medals. And 2025?

These days are only missing that Stephan Eberharter’s image hangs in the ski alms in the Herrgottswinkel. Hardly imagined, Austria would be at home without a gold medal in the history of the Ski World Cup. Or? In any case, little tendency to grace is said to be the mercy of the local ski cherry on TV and press, on Tuesday after sixth place in the Austrians – also behind the German Piefkes – this was already possible in the team event. But the medal god may have planned a portion of whipped cream for Hütter, Feller and Co.