Linus Straßer first stood in the finish area with a blank stare, but then found himself again quite quickly. A fall in the second round cost the ski racer the podium place at the home World Cup in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Wednesday evening. "It's part of the sport," said the Munich player. He approached the second run "in such a way that I'm going to fight for victory. That's where mistakes happen. If you don't risk it, you won't win a flower pot either." In the end, Strasser was only left with encouraging backslapping from his colleagues. The Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen celebrated his third win in a row on the Gudiberg.
In view of the high temperatures, the organizers had trembled for a long time about hosting the night event, the race director of the world association Fis only gave the final go a few hours before the start. The conditions were changeable. "The slope was extremely difficult to drive," said Straßer. He said she was "sleazy" and "restless" in the first round. Nevertheless, the 30-year-old, certainly benefiting from his low start number three, was in second place behind Kristoffersen at half-time.
When the German hopeful threw himself down the slope in the floodlights for the second time, a murmur went through the audience. The estimated 6500 fans in the shadow of the mighty ski jump scented Straßer's second podium place in a row when he was more than a second ahead of the then leading Manuel Feller from Austria - and then slipped away. Feller ended up second, Olympic champion Clement Noel from France third.
Straßer, who had finished third in the previous night slalom in Madonna di Campiglio and had been struggling with a cold in the days before his home race, was not discouraged by the zero number. "I have good speed, I'm good on my skis and I'll try it again in Adelboden," he said, looking ahead to the coming weekend in Switzerland.
The hopes of the Germans rested on Straßer, his teammates David Ketterer (34th), Sebastian Holzmann (35th), Anton Tremmel (39th), Fabian Himmelsbach (48th), Adrian Meisen (49th) and Alexander Schmid (eliminated) had all missed the final of the top 30 at the Gudiberg. The hopes of everyone involved rest on the weather and fair conditions.
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