Snowqueen Riegler
Competition wasn’t even born at her debut
Snowboard queen Claudia Riegler celebrated her debut in the World Cup 30 years ago. The 51-year-old looks back on this very special day with the "Krone". The Flachau native is still not thinking about retiring and has her sights firmly set on the 2026 Olympics.
November 24, 1994 is a special day in the career of snowboard queen Claudia Riegler. Why? On that date, the Flachau native celebrated her World Cup debut in Zell. 30 years later, the 51-year-old is still active and starts the winter with a race in China tomorrow.
Riegler still has fond memories of her debut. At that time, a dispute broke out between the two umbrella organizations - the ISF and the up-and-coming FIS. "There was quite a lot of turmoil," she recalls. "I remember many ISF employees standing at the finish line and holding up posters with not-so-nice slogans against the FIS." As a 21-year-old girl, this was not so easy for her. "I was a bit intimidated by it," admits the snow queen. Nevertheless, she made it straight into the points, finishing in 14th place.
However, it was to take a while before Riegler was able to really gain a foothold in the World Cup. "I also lacked a bit of motivation. My sister Manuela then persuaded me to carry on by telling me about her experiences. So my first real season wasn't actually until 1996."
The fact that she has now been at the top of the world for so long makes the 2015 RTL World Champion proud. "I often have to laugh to myself when I think about the fact that many of my current competitors weren't even born when I made my World Cup debut. But time passes quickly and even I still have potential for development."
"Can race at the front"
The coming weekend will be an initial assessment for her and the other ÖSV boarders. "If everything goes right, I can race at the front," Riegler is convinced. An end to her career is not in sight either. "The clear plan is to take part in the 2026 Olympic Games."
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Willkommen in unserer Community! Eingehende Beiträge werden geprüft und anschließend veröffentlicht. Bitte achten Sie auf Einhaltung unserer Netiquette und AGB. Für ausführliche Diskussionen steht Ihnen ebenso das krone.at-Forum zur Verfügung. Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.