Alpine Skiing: Can Marcel Hirscher Stay on Top in the World Cup Again in 2015?
The Alpine skiing season gets underway this weekend in Soelden, Austria with the first two World Cup races of 2014-15. The women compete in the giant slalom on Saturday, the men take their turn a day later.
Scheduled to begin his attempt at winning a fourth consecutive overall World Cup title is Austria's own Marcel Hirscher. As has been pointed out in just about any detailed mention of the 25-year-old this autumn, that would make him the first man to achieve the feat.
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The unfortunate, likely season-ending injury to his main challenger in recent years for the big crystal globe, Aksel Lund Svindal, has increased the chances of Hirscher staying on top.
No one skier has matched the Norwegian for consistency in the downhill and super G these last couple of years. While someone taking on his mantle in the speed categories is possible, at this early stage it leaves his Austrian rival looking to the men who regularly challenge him in his preferred technical events.
The 25-year-old's success has been founded on trademark brilliance in the technical disciplines—repeated slalom successes have been augmented by successive second-place finishes in the FIS' giant slalom competition. Given Hirscher is not the sport's main man working his way between the wider gates, he has done well to keep himself motivated to a standard in which he still often makes the podium to record valuable World Cup points (he finished in the top three in GS six times last season, two of which were on the top spot).
His chief adversary in the GS has been Ted Ligety. The American has moved back ahead in the GS elite since Hirscher won the event's globe in 2012, underlining his superiority here with gold medals in two World Championships, as well as the Winter Olympics. He will be favourite to win for a fourth time in Soelden on Sunday too.
Despite his World Cup successes and a 2013 World Championships gold in slalom, Hirscher has not been immune to setbacks there either. His disappointed reaction after being pipped to first place by compatriot Mario Matt at Sochi this year saw him criticised at home, as he told the New York Times' Kelley McMillan this week.
"When you have a dream that you’ve had your whole life and you’re that close to reaching it, it’s for sure a disappointment, but only for the first, I don’t know, 120 seconds," Hirscher reflected. "And that was when all the cameras were on my face."
The Austrian was not alone in suffering such a visible Olympic disappointment. Switzerland's Lara Gut reacted similarly after being edged out of gold in the downhill by Dominique Gisin and Tina Maze.
These moments are inevitable, of course. Yet it speaks to the quality Hirscher has mostly sustained that we are surprised when things do not quite go to plan (though Olympic silver is not too shabby).
Crucially, he appears to have retained a healthy attitude to the task at hand. One that—as he told the Times' McMillan—acknowledges there is more to life than skiing, but also understands improvement remains key to staying among the best. "I am always trying to get better, no matter what I am doing," he said to Red Bull Snow's Riikka Rakic. "If I’m not improving, I am standing still."
Trying to get ahead of him this year in slalom—both in the World Cup season and February's Vail-hosted World Championships—will be last season's second-place man Felix Neureuther. The German was ahead of him in the standings heading into finals week in Lenzerheide and will be keen to take that step further.
The progress of Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen will eagerly be noted too. The then-teenager pipped Hirscher at the famous night race in Schladming to record his first World Cup win, and ended the season third in the overall standings.
As NBC Sports' Nick Zaccardi put it in February, "Mikaela Shiffrin isn’t the only teenage slalom phenom." Kristoffersen's precociousness is expected to come even more to the fore soon enough.
The aforementioned Ligety should be Hirscher's main obstacle to winning titles in giant slalom. The 30-year-old told the Associated Press, via Canada.com, he would like to be a foil to Hirscher for the overall crown too.
"If I keep the giant slalom going as it has been and get a little more consistent in super-G and slalom, maybe I have a chance," Ligety said on the eve of Soelden. "Marcel is just so strong in (slalom and GS) and really doesn’t have any lapses in races result-wise. That makes it very tough to compete with him."
Also in contention for the whole thing is France's Alexis Pinturault, third in that overall hunt in 2014.
Thus far, GS has been Pinturault's main area of expertise. There he finished third in the World Cup too in 2014, and also secured Olympic bronze. A season-ending super G win in Lenzerheide has contributed to hopes his winning range will soon be expanded even further, though he has been quick to play down expectations.
"To win the overall is not yet a goal because it is really difficult to say at the beginning of the winter how fast you are compared to the others, but I am prepared for it," the 23-year-old told the official FIS website. "I will for sure try my best but with all the really good guys around, it will be not be easy."
There lies the potential thrill of Hirscher remaining king of the hill come the start of next spring. If he has stayed there in the face of all these attempts on his lofty position, it will not have been easy.
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