Swiss win Team combination: Demonstration of power at the neighbor

The color would have already fit, six men in red and white racing suits jumped and balled through the target area of ​​Saalbach. A triple success was booked, gold, silver and – because it was so beautiful – bronze afterwards. The audience in the stadium of the Ski World Cup dwelled its flags, with as much swing as it swings when the men in the red and white racing suits were not on the road for Austria, but for an adjacent Alpine country that slowly the organizers But surely your home World Cup.

The second Ski World Cup in Saalbach is increasingly developing to festival for Switzerland. In particular, the premiere of the men’s new team combination on Wednesday gave an idea of ​​how the balance of power was shifted in international skiing. Franjo von Allmen won his second gold medal in the Glemmtal in a duet and slalom specialist, his team partner Loïc Meillard finished victory, silver went to Alexis Monney and Tanguy Nef. Stefan Rogentin and Marc Rochat completed the Swiss medal set. The best skier of the present, Marco Odermatt, watched happily in the stadium. A sporty demonstration of power can hardly be overwhelmed.

In the middle of the fray was a man from one of the smallest teams of this ski World Cup and was happy about eighth place. Simon Jocher drives for the German Ski Association (DSV), whose athletes currently belong to species protection, so few are left. In any case, Jocher will remember the past 48 hours for longer, since he already thought his World Cup trip was over. He had long been on the couch at home in Schongau, the recovery phase was opened when the phone rang. A call from national coach Christian Schwaiger, says the 28-year-old. “I should pack my things right away.”

The list of injured DSV racing drivers is long, only Romed Baumann was spared last-now an infection got him

The background is that the Romed Baumann, intended for the team combination, had to fit at short notice due to an infection. The 39-year-old is one of the few in the DSV team that had been spared in injuries in recent years. The list of currently injured ski professionals is enormous: Andreas Sander, Alexander Schmid, Jacob Schramm, Nickco Vincent Palamaras, Sebastian Holzmann-all of the World Cup candidates who watched on Wednesday. Just as Jocher had planned.

But so he got into the car on Tuesday before he fell on the downhill slope from the Zwölferkogel for the last time on Wednesday morning and, despite months of injury problems, rapidly rushed into the valley. The Upper Bavaria then made a mistake, and so Slalom-Ace Linus Straßer had to go to the finale with a mortgage of two seconds in the early afternoon. The short -term nature was a challenge, of course, Jocher later explained. “Four and a half hours drive before the Kamptag is anything but optimal.” But Jocher delivered, and he knew a trump card at his side.

Straßer has also remained healthy. And the last world-class athlete of the DSV men delivered. The 32-year-old stayed without recognizable weaknesses and finished the second fastest of all slalom drivers, so for Team Germany there were still ten places ahead. “I think that the Simon showed an extremely brave journey,” said Straßer. In his own approach in slalom, he dosed between control and attack in a difficult view.

There was fog above the Glemmtal on Wednesday, and if one would want to drift into metaphorical, that matched this day, on which it could be guessed that there is still a lot missing from the Renaissance of the Saalbacher Sonnen World Cup from 1991. From the perspective of the Austrians, meteorology and medal mirror will not be nearly as dazzling as it once remembered. The second Saalbacher World Cup, on the other hand, has its own anecdotes, not least that of Simon Jocher, who, after a violent bruise and the consequences of a herniated disc, actually seemed to be anything other for the world championships-and now contributed to the best result of the DSV men so far .