PYEONGCHANG, South Korea: Marcel Hirscher has dominated World Cup skiing for the past six seasons, but the Austrian admitted Wednesday a first “amazing” Olympic gold medal would be the icing on the cake.
Despite winning six overall World Cup crystal globes between 2012-17, with 55 victories and 120 podiums, Hirscher has just one individual medal at a Winter Games, silver in the slalom in Sochi in 2014.
The 28-year-old finished a heart-breaking fourth in the giant slalom in both Sochi and Vancouver four years earlier, where he also came in fifth in the slalom.“It would be an amazing success, not a life-changing or career-changing success, but it would be really nice to have,” Hirscher said of an Olympic gold.
“What is 100 percent sure is that I will go for it, that’s the plan. Plans don’t always work out, but you never know.“It can be that the dream comes true but it can also be that I finish the Olympic Games with just one silver.”
Asked whether things were different now than for Sochi, a relaxed Hirscher said: “Yes! Having 55 World Cup wins and six big crystal globes.”“If I’m done tomorrow it will be fine anyways, it was an amazing career.”
One of Hirscher’s main rivals in the giant slalom will be American Ted Ligety, who will be hunting a third Olympic gold despite having enjoyed nowhere near the success of the Austrian on the World Cup circuit.
But Ligety said Hirscher’s lack of Olympic success would not detract from his legacy.“It’s important to win a gold medal, I think it’s an important piece of rounding out a legacy like his, but at the same time... it doesn’t change the fact he’s one of the greatest of all time,” Ligety said.
The American was quick to add: “Hirscher’s been very dominant this year, but the Olympics are different from the World Cup so hopefully the race goes differently from how it has been in the World Cup!”
Hirscher dubbed Ligety’s praise “a big honour”.“Every athlete is here wanting a gold medal and hopefully pushing it as hard as possible,” he said.“Now I’m missing that Olympic gold medal, I’m here on a mission and we’ll see how it works.
“The only thing I can do is have fun with this and see where I’m ending up after these Olympics.”Hirscher said the winner on the speed events track at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre piste could well be the one whose team finds the right “set-up”, nailing down the correctly edged and waxed skis so they work the most efficiently on the hard-packed snow and in bitterly cold conditions.
The clue was “testing, testing, testing and playing with all the experience we have, the whole team, and hoping we’re making the right decisions when it comes to waxing, edging”.“You know if you have the right set-up on the race day.”You know if you have it after two turns or if it’s a complete mess, but not during testing.“The race hill is always different from training hills, but it’s the same for every racer.”
from The News International - Sports http://ift.tt/2BNGSR2
