Ski World Cup, women’s downhill: Weidle races to the next medal for Germany in Cortina d’Ampezzo

Kira Weidle was overwhelmed, at first she didn’t know what to say. “It’s amazing,” said the native of Stuttgart, then asked for patience: “It takes a while before I realize that.” In fact, she was allowed to be speechless for the time being: After Romed Baumann, the 24-year-old downhill woman achieved the next German sensation at the Alpine Ski World Cup in the Super-G. In the race of her life, she took second place, the best result of her career so far.

As soon as she raced over the finish line at the foot of the “Olimpia delle Tofane”, which she loved so much, Weidle knew: it was a good trip. She stretched her right index finger upwards as if to suggest: Look, I told you so.

And when it became clear that only fellow favorite Corinne Suter (Switzerland) had been faster than her (by 0.20 seconds), she emphasized: “Sure,” it was always the big goal to win a medal, “I knew , I’ve got it. “

“Corinne Suter had the absolute dream run. But I’m super happy with my skiing today. It was always the big goal to land at the top. Cortina was always one of my favorite runs,” she added.

Above all, the decisive factor was that the Starnberg woman made it through the upper section of the route almost flawlessly, which kept causing her problems. In the lower section of the route, she was able to play to her strengths and was the only driver on par with Suter.

When Weidle crossed the finish line with the number 11, the “2” lit up next to her name, but then had to tremble a bit: there were still medal contenders at the start. But only Lara Gut-Behrami, the Super G world champion from Switzerland, was able to move onto the podium in third place (+0.37 seconds).

And so Weidle remained the sensational first World Cup silver in the downhill since Katja Seizinger in 1996 and the first medal in the supreme discipline since Maria Höfl-Riesch’s bronze in 2013.

Thanks to the coups by Baumann and Weidle, the German team fulfilled their ambitious medal plan after just three races, and so the German alpine boss Wolfgang Maier couldn’t stop grinning on this sunny day.

“That is of course a tremendous achievement. If we had said after the course of the season so far that she is in the top five, it would have been okay. But that it is possible to win a medal is amazing. For us it is a dream” said Maier.

A dream that came as a surprise but not completely out of nowhere. At the last World Cup race on the Tofanapiste two years ago she was fourth. In the current one, she finished in the top five twice and in the final training as fifth she underlined her good form.

It was still astonishing because Weidle had only made it onto the podium twice in the World Cup anyway. Amazing because for a long time she had such great difficulty negotiating tight or narrowing corners. But, stressed Maier: “She trained a lot of the giant slalom, she invested a lot, and now she has picked up the wages for it.”

That was also due to Markus Voppichler on that day:

 The  Austrian serviceman von Weidle, who starts for SC Starnberg, had given her a “world class material” (Maier).

In any case, due to the many injuries in the team, Weidle was currently on the road as a soloist and accepted everything that was given to her for the race, praised Maier. “In the end, she has to do it, and she did what she was told to do well. All you can say is: Chapeau.”

For the DSV it was “world class”, said Maier, Weidle was the only “shot” that the women had available: “You can only take off your hat and say: Hey, Kira, you did that great . “

And so it was easy for Maier to extend Weidle’s room by another day.

 The  announced namely: “We stay one more night. That is still celebrated.”

Meanwhile, the winner Suter struggled for words. “If I’m honest, I can’t quite realize it yet. I think I have to praise my service man. And my whole team, it takes so much for everything to fit together on day X. I was able to regain my strengths today play to the full “, said the Swiss.

Result + ticker for the women’s World Cup downhill

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