"Grondin is beatable"
Montafon World Cup as balm for Hämmerle’s soul
"This course is really balm for the soul! After the last World Cup stages, where the courses were really, really small," Alessandro "Izzi" Hämmerle beamed in the sunshine on the Montafon Grasjoch on Thursday and continued to enthuse: "This is a course like the old days, which has what I started this sport for back then."
Julian Lüftner from Vorarlberg was also enthusiastic: "This is more importantly a 'real' World Cup course with big banks, wide, a jump that you have to press. It finally gives you that tingling feeling again when you're at the start," says the 31-year-old police athlete with a big smile on his face after finishing 14th in training, 1.65 seconds behind season dominator Eliot Grondin. The Canadian has been on the podium in every race this winter and has won five out of eight races. This weekend in the Silvretta Montafon, he can secure his first ever overall World Cup victory ahead of schedule.
Lüftner thinks dominator Grondin can be beaten
But Izzi and the other ÖSV aces want to prevent that. "Eliot is beatable in every run," Lüftner is convinced. "But that requires a top run. The consistency he has at the moment is impressive. However, he also has the necessary racing luck on his side this season."
Plums together and with the music
Olympic champion Hämmerle and world champion Jakob Dusek in particular proved that the red-white-red boarders are well prepared for the qualifiers on Friday (11.20). They finished third and fourth in training, coming within 21 and 43 hundredths of the Canadian respectively. "This result takes the pressure off, because you know you've got your seven plums together and you're with the music," says Izzi.
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