Swiss-Ski looking to consolidate

Will this be Silvano Beltrametti's season? Keystone Archive

With just over a week to go until the start of the alpine skiing season, the Swiss skiing association say they're ready to build on the improvements of last year.

“We’ll be looking to further reduce the gap between us and the Austrians, and hopefully we’ll be right up there with them” men’s head coach Dieter Bartsch told swissinfo on Thursday. “We also intend to travel with plenty of confidence to Salt Lake City (for February’s Winter Olympics).”

Bartsch, an Austrian himself, said the reason for the Swiss team’s confidence lay mainly in the perceived success of their summer training in Switzerland and South America.

Tough work

“We’ve put in some tough work over the last few months, and everything has gone according to plan,” Bartsch explained. “The weather conditions were perfect which isn’t often the case, the athletes performed well and we’re also heading into the new season virtually free of injury worries, for a change.”

Young Swiss talent Silvano Beltrametti is the only member of the men’s team currently keeping the doctors occupied, after picking up a slight knock to his knee during a crash in training. But the 22-year-old from Graubünden is not involved in next weekend’s giant slalom programme in Sölden, and is expected to be fully fit for his first downhill race in Vail at the end of November.

“Silvano will be ready and I think he will have good chances this season of being among the top three or five, maybe even winning,” reckoned Bartsch. “We have done a lot of work in the downhill discipline and we have a much stronger set-up than in previous years.”

Von Grünigen favourite

Switzerland’s top men’s skier last season, Michael von Grünigen, will start the new season as the strong favourite in the giant slalom with his long-time rival Hermann Meier still recovering from his horrific motorbike crash. Bartsch doesn’t think for a minute though that Meier’s absence will have much effect on the Austrian team as a whole.

“The other Austrians are happy that they are starting to get more media attention now and that’s giving them an even greater sense of motivation and self-importance, so I think Meier’s absence will actually make things harder for us.”

New women’s coach

New Swiss women’s coach Angelo Maina is also anticipating a strong challenge after returning to the post he left five years ago. The Ticinese trainer aims to keep his team in the top three although his main long-term goal is to improve the breadth of talent.

“We have a very small team now compared to, say, ten years ago,” Maina told swissinfo. “Clearly with Sonja Nef and Corinne Rey-Bellet we have a couple of strong skiers but I hope to see a couple of the younger girls breaking through soon. The potential is there but the process can take a bit of time.”

For this season, Maina is promising only that his team will be working their hardest towards success at both the Olympics and in the World Cup season.

“For me it’s very important that we make a good start to the season. I think we’ll need a bit of luck at the Olympics and if we get that, we could get some good results.”

Other than pledging to maintain their respective positions in the national standings, the two head coaches are not setting any particular targets in terms of medal wins or World Cup titles.

The opening weekend of action in Austria will however give Swiss fans an early chance to see how the country’s two biggest stars are shaping up. As well as Michael von Grünigen, reigning world champion and World Cup holder Sonja Nef will be expected to do well in Sölden.

by Mark Ledsom