Alpine skiing World Cup opener with surprise winner Alice Robinson

At the sight of the still snow-free nature, through which a prepared carpet of snow made its way in the Söldner glacier area, many will not yet be prepared for winter sports, after all, the thermometer still rose to over 20 degrees at lower altitudes. It may well be that many have not yet realized that a change is obviously taking place in the alpine skiing circus, at least one is inclined to draw such a conclusion after the first race.

Nothing is more boring when the same people always win, because then the excitement is gone. This weekend, the women proved the opposite in the Giant Slalom race on the Rettenbach Glacier. A World Cup opener has hardly ever had so many new discoveries: No less than 5 young racers finished in the top 11, of whom hardly anything had been heard before. First and foremost the surprise winner Alice Robinson, who took her first World Cup victory in her first race. The 17-year-old New Zealander is already well known to insiders. Last March she took 2nd place behind Mikaela Shiffrin in the World Cup Giant Slalom in Andorra, after realizing 2nd place in the Super G in the Europa Cup a few days earlier and celebrating her title as Junior World Champion in the Giant Slalom about a month earlier. The young New Zealander heralds the generation change in alpine skiing. In the future, the young national champion will have to be taken into account. But also the Norwegians Tviberg and Holtmann, the Austrian Franziska Gritsch or Tina Robnik have attracted attention with their good results.

But the big names did not disappear. Top favorite Miakela Shiffrin, who had already outshone everyone in the first run, stood on the podium just 0.06 seconds behind, followed by veteran Tessa Worley. Federica Brignone was not completely satisfied despite her remarkable 5th place. The best Swiss skier was Lara Gut-Behrami, who showed strong beginnings and improvements in her skiing style thanks to her new coach and advanced to 8th place. Wendy Holdener had to drop back here and settle for 13th place.

All in all, the Ski World Cup showed a new, fresh face alongside many familiar racers. What the results in Sölden are worth over the entire season will be seen at the end of the season. In any case, excitement is inevitable. And unfortunately there is already a first victim of the sport. Austrian Bernadette Schild had an unfortunate fall and tore her cruciate ligament, which means the season is over for her. We wish her a speedy recovery.