Daniel Hemetsberger after the crash: “The impact was horrific”

The shockingly honest descriptions cause sheer horror among his counterparts, which often turns into peals of laughter at some point when Daniel Hemetsberger really turns up the heat in his dialect again.

“I’ve had quite a crack in my skull,” said the veteran after the second downhill training session on the Stelvio. “And it twisted my right haxn a bit. But that’s the one anyway.”

Without a helmet

It was by no means a given that Hemetsberger was able to appear on his own for the interview on Thursday. The take-off that the 34-year-old made in the top part of the track was one of the hearty sort.

Not only because he crashed his head into a goal at 100 km/h, the Upper Austrian also lost his helmet in this powerful impact before he crashed unprotected into the barriers. “The impact was really horrific.”

Daniel Hemetsberger wouldn’t be Daniel Hemetsberger if he couldn’t find something positive about this big pretzel. “My mouth guard has proven itself, otherwise I would probably lose a few teeth right now.” And also: “It was cool that the airbag finally deployed. I experienced that once too.”

Hemetsberger, who underwent a medical check after training as a precaution (“I may have a slight concussion”), is not worried about starting in the downhill race on Saturday. Rather, he was extremely upset that he had ended up in the safety net.

With brains

“I did the same shit as in Kitzbühel,” says Hemetsberger. “My outside ski went straight, the inside ski turned. That’s the annoying thing. You can make a mistake once, but not twice. Idiot.”

The violent crash of the 34-year-old Austrian pushed the outcome of the second training run into the background. The significance of the statement in bright sunshine was of course very manageable, because the stars excelled at braking and simply not revealing all the cards.

Nevertheless, it could not be prevented that in the end three Italians, Mattia Casse, Florian Schieder and Giovanni Franzoni, were ahead. The Austrians presented themselves in a similarly united manner – only with a respectful distance. Stefan Babinsky, Vincent Kriechmayr and Raphael Haaser took places 11 to 13.