Christian Hirschbühl returns to the World Cup

It is less popular, attracts less advertisers, but Christian Hirschbühl will be back on skis on November 17, during the Levi slalom. We were no longer expecting the Austrian, whose last start dates back to January 16, 2022 after a serious ankle injury.

He had not given any sign of life since the Wengen slalom on January 16, 2022, and fell on his buttocks, sliding down the slope. The tumble seemed harmless, but the Bernese ice left him with serious after-effects and stopped his career in its tracks.

The Austrian media even headlined a desperate “Endlich!” when the leaders announced the return of the crippled man from Vorarlberg.

Yes, finally.

Because the 34-year-old slalom skier, with elegant and calm skiing, seemed destined for the scrapyard, ticking the sports retirement box with a suitcase of regrets. Cloistered at home because of that damn broken ankle, Hirschbühl watched his friends on his television screen, passively, healing his wounds (moral and physical).

Worse, slalom requires youthful explosiveness, it was difficult to bet on a return of slalom racing to the forefront. Worse still, without having skied and put on a World Cup bib more than 1000 days later.

But at the end of the long tunnel of galleys, there is the (artificial) light of Levi Black.

He had to sweat, fight doubts to find his place in a starting shed:

To anger and to merit. If he shows a smile today, the Austrian remains cautious about his chances of doing well on the Finnish route. His last days of training, according to him, showed that his speed and technical ease are not yet at the level which previously allowed him to appear regularly in the 25 best slalom skiers in the world. It seems a bit far away (even gone) the time when he was able to finish the 2019 season in 13th place in the general ranking of the specialty.

A splash in November 2021

In reality, this catch-up is almost secondary. The Ski Austria athlete could have pulled the water many times. But not him. He’s still there. And even if his career never took off, remaining most often in the shadow of Feller, Hirscher or even Michael Matt, he was capable of sublimating himself (4th in 2017 in Wengen and author of several top 10s).

It was especially at the same time that he achieved his biggest success: a victory at Lech Zürs, on November 14, 2021. And three races later, a sluggish ankle.

In 2024, the pleasure is intact and the confidence regained. It has been running for several months already, as Marko Pfeifer revealed. The head coach of Ski Austria, still through the federation’s press release, explained that his protégé could have boxed poles during the slalom in Kranjska Gora, in Slovenia. Unfortunately, weather conditions forced the organizers to cancel the event.

Hirschbühl will certainly not be at his advantage in the Finnish pole forest. But the guy has the merit of not having given up anything. Pfeifer confirmed that his athlete still has some under the hood: “He has performed well in training recently and I hope he can rely on his old strengths again when he returns to Finland,” said the Austrian team leader.

He will have to gather his strength, but the slalom skier from the Riefensberg club is one of the breed of skiers who have guts, like Stefan Luitz; these courageous people who deserve more recognition, or even less tribute.