By Shadia Nasralla
LONDON (Reuters) – The pressure is on for Austria, the most successful ski nation of all time, to prove that it still has what it takes to dominate at the Beijing Olympic Games.
Austria’s record at the Winter Olympics is untouchable. Its skiers have won 121 Alpine medals since the birth of the Winter Games, almost twice as many as the second most successful nation, Switzerland.
But this year everything is different. Planned test events in China’s Yanqing mountain area had to be cancelled last year because of COVID-19 and the course will be opened for practice only on Feb. 3, three days before medal events begin.
“We only have very little information (about the terrain) because none of us has been over there yet,” said Austrian men’s Alpine head coach Andreas Puelacher.
“This adds suspense and probably difficulty — for every country, not just for us,” Puelacher said.
Coronavirus has hit the Austrians, too, with super-G and downhill world champion Vincent Kriechmayr and slalom skiers Katharina Truppe, Michael Matt and Manuel Feller testing positive less than a month before the start of the Games.
But there is no let-up for the nation which produced skiers such as Toni Sailer, who won three Olympic gold medals in 1956, including on one all-Austrian podium. Austria would paint Olympic podiums exclusively in red-and-white again in 1964 and 2006.
In the 1970s, it is hard to find a season not won by Franz Klammer and Annemarie Moser-Proell. On the eve of the new millennium, Hermann ‘The Herminator’ Maier emerged to win four World Cup seasons, three world championships and two Olympic golds.
More recently, Benjamin Raich, Marcel Hirscher and Anna Veith became ski mega stars.
In the speed races, Kriechmayr, Matthias Mayer — Olympic gold medallist in the super-G and downhill — Feller and Raphael Haaser have every reason to hope for medals in Beijing after their performances this season.
In the combined event, Marco Schwarz’s world championship gold last year could pave the way for Austria to retain the Olympic title in the discipline after Hirscher’s gold in Pyeongchang.
Johannes Strolz, son of 1988 Olympic combined champion Hubert Strolz, lost his place in Austria’s squad last year but has come back with a vengeance, securing his first World Cup race victory in the slalom this year.
As for the women, American Mikaela Shiffrin, Italy’s Sofia Goggia and Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova will put up stiff competition, but Goggia injured her knee shortly before Beijing, leaving her participation in the Games hanging in the balance.
Slalom world champion Katharina Liensberger and Mirjam Puchner have already climbed the podium for Austria more than once this season.
Liensberger, though, is recovering from the coronavirus and reached only 21st place in the last pre-Beijing race in Schladming.
(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla; editing by Clare Fallon)
