Summary after Levi

ÖSV head coach: “We are hanging on to Mika’s coat-tails”

Mikaela Shiffrin (left) won in Levi - women's head coach Roland Assinger (right) knows that the US-American is hard to bend.

(Bild: GEPA/GEPA pictures)

"We're not close enough to tweak them yet. At the moment, I'd say we're hanging on to Mika's coat-tails," said ÖSV head coach Roland Assinger after the World Cup race in Levi.

The "Krone" reports from Levi

"She is simply a brutal bench in the slalom." Austria's women's head coach Roland Assinger knows that Mikaela Shiffrin is very, very difficult to beat in her showpiece discipline (61 World Cup victories, 8 crystal globes, 4 World Championship titles, 1 Olympic gold).

But can Katharina Liensberger perhaps "tweak" her a little at her home race in Gurgl on Saturday, maybe even beat Mika? "We're not close enough to tweak her yet. At the moment we're hanging on Mika's coat-tails, I would say." But it is precisely Shiffrin's exceptional ability that makes it so appealing to perhaps really beat her from time to time. Assinger's motto: "Keep at it! And then see what else might happen this season."

Levi runner-up Liensberger says of Mika: "Solid, clean, fast! But I can also be really satisfied with the start to the season. That gives me a lot of confidence." Incidentally, Shiffrin named her eighth reindeer "won" in Levi "Rori". However, she dedicated the victory to Matilde Lorenzi. The young Italian woman who was killed in a ski training accident in South Tyrol at the end of October.

Katharina Truppe wants one thing above all else over the next few days: to clear her head. "I've got enough slalom goals in me. It's all in my head. Open the window and air it out - then hopefully it will be okay again in Gurgl!"