Not long ago, ski racer Camille Rast wanted to give up everything. The Swiss woman later reported that she was stuck in a “deep hole”, in sport and beyond. You can sink into holes like Rast described. But the now 26-year-old woman from Valais resisted. “I didn’t know where I wanted to go,” said Rast, only one thing was certain: get out of the hole. Perplexity turned into restlessness – and now the not-so-talented verbal acrobats of this ski world have been using the running joke: Camille is racing away from everyone. In fact, everyone.
The league of the extraordinary Mikaela Shiffrin has grown from Switzerland. This realization remains from the ski weekend in Kranjska Gora, where Camille Rast became the first athlete this winter to defeat the American in a slalom. Shiffrin had been victorious in all five races in this discipline so far. This Sunday, however, Rast was already a tenth faster in the first round, before the Swiss woman once again wound her way through the Slovenian pole forest in the second round as if pulled by invisible threads – and defeated Shiffrin. In the end, 14 hundredths of a second separated the two, in their own little league of two, almost two seconds ahead of the rest of the world’s best.
:The ski racer who collects victories like other garden gnomes
The American competed in her first World Cup race at the age of 15 and is now the best in her discipline. But strokes of fate also mark her impressive career.
The good news for all other ambitious slalom cracks among women: At the Olympics, not just two, but three prizes are traditionally awarded: gold, silver and bronze. And this matter may have recently become a concern among the German skiing community, as Emma Aicher and Lena Dürr slipped off the track of success as the Winter Games got closer.
With a view to the Winter Olympics, Camille Rast should be expected
On the challenging Vitranc slope in Kranjska Gora, both of them left new clues as to why a formed hole does not necessarily have to become a crater. Aicher carved around the gates in the first round just as smoothly as Shiffrin and Rast, at the same speed, before falling behind on the steep slope shortly before the end – and losing a second because of the following detour. In the end, Aicher ended up in eighth place, three places ahead of Lena Dürr, who, after a braked safety run, shifted up a gear in the second run and improved by five places. Both were three seconds away from the top, but Wendy Holdener in third place would have been within reach for both of them.
And Camille Rast, world champion in this discipline but has since been dominated by Shiffrin? The 26-year-old had just achieved her first double victory, having already won the giant slalom at the same place on Saturday. At the finish, the Swiss seemed almost shy. This woman, who spoke openly about her depression and how mountain biking helped her regain her composure, is characterized by restraint. How she discovered that you don’t have to take skiing too seriously because the seriousness of life usually takes place far away from the World Cup slopes. You could see that in Rast, who wore black mourning ribbon on her arm during both races in memory of the victims of the fire disaster in Crans-Montana, which is not far from her own home in the Conthey district in the French-speaking part of the canton of Valais. “I think about these families,” Rast said.
With a view to the Winter Games, the Swiss should be a force to be reckoned with in the technical disciplines. Unlike Aicher, Rast limits himself to slalom and giant slalom. However, she trains in the summer with her teammate Malorie Blanc, a downhill and super-G speed specialist. “We sometimes joke that a mix of the two of us would be extremely fast,” said Rast to the Swiss Blick said once. This is the good news for Aicher and his competitors: that Rast meant this as a joke.