Maze and Hirscher win 2013 ski world-cup

Maze wins and breaks records but can't take all the Globes

24 podiums, 11 victories, 2 "small globes" and the Overall title with record of points ever scored by a human being in a single season. Yes, Tina Maze just finished the best season ever in the history of ski world cup, but probably a little of a bitter taste stayed as she was very close to win all the crystal globes possible. She unarguably very unlucky with the cancellation of the final downhill where a top 7 finish would have given her the title, no matter the results of the others as she was just 1 point trailing to the injured Lindsey Vonn, who thanks to the horrible weather (and in all honesty the dumbness of FIS rules, which don't let the final races be replaced, not even in the space of the same week) won the crystal globe for the 6th time in a row - that's a record too-.
The same bad weather forced the organizers to cancel the superg too and by the effect of this choice, Tina won the superg globe without the need of defending it from the last assault of the only rival left, Julia Mancuso, who later of twitter expressed all her resentment towards FIS, which decided to hold the team event the really next day, instead of letting girls fight for either the superg or downhill title.
It wasn't then a surprise that USA pulled out of the team event and Maze didn't compete for her country there. In that atmosphere of controversy Germany could run off with the victory ahead of Sweden and Italy.
Saturday was then the day of the slalom, the last unsecure title to be given in the season, Maze was leading the standing thanks to a win in the last race, which made her overcome Mikaela Shiffrin, but the two were just few points away one from the other, hence the one of the two placing ahead of the other would have won the title.

After the first run Maze seemed so sure of the win, as she was leading the race with a margin of over a second, but in the second run the just-become-adult Shiffrin, having nothing to lose skied probably the most impressive run of the year pulverizing whatever attempt to overcome her in the final standing. As usual Tina tried it all, but there was nothing she could have done there and in the end she finished only 3rd, behind a surprising Bernadette Schild.
Tears run down the face of Tina as she crossed the finish line, Lenzerheide, after having given her first win in slalom two years ago, seemed to have become jinxed as in two days she lost everything she could have lost, but all in honesty Shiffrin totally deserved this title and for sure she will see many more coming in the next years, so there's no shame in losing a tight battle with her.

In the last day of this 2013 ski world cup GS was to be hold. Title was already secure to go to Tina, but despite that, you could see how much she wanted to finish this season well, because she attacked from the very first gates of the first run too and she was second only to Tessa Worley when one run was yet to be done.
In the second run a great comeback avoided Lara Gut to snatch her second ever podium in Giant Slalom, but nothing could stop Maze to take her 11th win of the season, she was just flawless and not even an inspired second run by Worley could do much to stop her. Tessa finished second in the end and Tina could finish the season exactly the same way as she started, winning.

Weather kills Svindal's last chances, Marcel wins the Overall again

Heading to the world cup finals Aksel Lund Svindal knew his hopes for the overall title were really few, he was trailing in the run for the title of some 50 points to Hirscher, but he could have had a chance if he had won both the downhill and the superg as everything would have then been on the Austrian's young shoulders, but the Norge didn't even have the chance to try, because as it happened for the Ladies, weather has been harsh during the days of the speed events and forced organizers to call them off.

Svindal won two globes nevertheless, the superg and the downhill ones, yet this wasn't enough to challenge Hircher as the number of slalom and giant slaloms this season was a lot bigger than the one of speed races and in the technical ones Marcel kept an impressive pace, which in the end could give him the overall title, even if he competed only in those two events.
After the team event, it was giant slalom's day and as usual it was an only man show, with Ted Ligety dominating the race in both runs, in the second of which he tamed the attack of Hirscher and Pinturault, who finished 2nd and 3rd, making the final standingof the race, the same of the GS cup!

Last day was the one for slalom, once again everything was already decided for the discipline globe and the overall was already "booked" under Hirscher's name, nonetheless the race was hugely enetertaining and in the end Felix Neureuther could snatch an impressive win over Hirscher and the once again incredible Ivica Kostelic, who's been able to win last week in Kranjska Gora and now to finish on podium despite another severe injury occurred to his knee not long ago.

Superg gives first medals in Schladming

It's the most important event of this season, it's the event of every uneven year, it's the chance to win a medal to write your name in the history of this sport, it's a single race, all or nothing, it's the world championships.
This year's edition is taking place in the heart of Austria, in Schladming, but from the very beginning it seems to be destined to be one of the most discussed.

Maze wins through the fog, Lindsey crashes.

This seems to be Maze's season, she's the most impressive skier out there, being on top of every discipline in the world cup standings, having won more races than every one else in 4 out of 5 disciplines since October, but at the World Championships is never easy to win, mostly if you come as a heavy favourite.

Despite her leadership in the SuperG standing, the favourite for the win was surely American Lindsey Vonn, winner of several crystal globes in that discipline, world champion in Val D'Isere four years ago and 20 times winner in WC. The rivalry between the two was set  to be one of the most interesting sides of this year's edition of the WCH and with the superg as the first race taking place in the very first day, things seemed to get interesting from the start.
At 11:30, time at which the race was supposed to start, a very thick fog was stuck in the middle of the curse and a light rain was dropping on the finish area. The jury hoped for a sudden improvement of the conditions and start to delay the start of 15 minutes. That happened many many times as much as most of the girls and commentators were pretty sure it was a matter of time the race was cancelled. That didn't happen at the very moment it was slightly clearer the race started. It was 3pm.

As it was evident after the first runs, the slope was as easy as it was expected to be, but the course set to make hard to interpret the waves and bumps of the slope, mostly with the bad light caused by the cloudy sky and the wintry afternoon light.
Bib number 4, Slovenian Ilka Stuhec, didn't seem to be scared of the conditions and exploited the big talent of hers to score a very interesting time, which eventually let her achieve her best ever placement in the discipline in a world cup level race. The Slovenian, who was one of the most interesting youngsters only a few years ago, suffered many injuries in her young career and you could see the joy of hers while one after the other important name in the lists of Superg finished even far behind her in the standing.
The first one to better her time was Swiss superstar Lara Gut, whose talent in Superg doesn't come as new to anyone following skiing even seldom. Swiss's race was almost errorless and her great ability to create speed even in the tightest turns let her score amazing partials whenever the course was more technical.
The Swiss led the race until the beginning of the top group and neither Rebensburg nor Suter could finish close to her, even though her team-mate Fabienne finished just ahead of Stuhec in the temporary 2nd place.

Then it was Tina Maze's time. The world cup leader started like a fury, pushing hard from the very moment she opened the starting gate, combining her power with a smooth technique. Her intermediates were all very close to Gut's, but a perfect final section gave her the necessary speed to gain as much as 38 hundreds to finish ahead of the Swiss.
Her scream for joy was suddenly silenced by another scream, coming from several gates above. It was Vonn's voice, her tears, her pain. Lindsey had just badly crashed landing from a jump and the helicopter immediately came to rescue her. Later news announced the rupture of some of her knee ligaments and the fracture of the top of the shinbone.
After the long break it took to take the American to safety the atmosphere at the start of the race was tense and one after the other Maria Riesch and Anna Fenninger committed two bad mistakes probably due to the tension, which set both of them out for the race.

Race was far from finished though, as Julia Mancuso found the strength to give her best despite the injury of her compatriot and the news of the death of her grandad. She skied some of the best sections mostly in the middle part of the race, but it wasn't enough to trouble Maze's leadership. Still, her run was worth a 3rd place, which would be hers even by the end of the race, despite two thrilling assaults brought by two Italians.
First it was caused by Daniela Merigetti, whose awesome final part made her gain quite a lot of positions, but couldn't make her finish higher than her 7th place. But mostly the 2nd was sure to scare the American, as Italian Sofia Goggia, at her very first race above European Cup level, decided she had nothing to lose and skied out of her mind being very close to cause some major upsets. By the end she was 4th, only 5 hundreds behind Mancuso, but as she herself said, this was not a loss, but an amazing result, even if it was not worth a medal.
The race was very soon interrupted due to darkness once the legal number of racers to make the result valid was reached.

Ligety surprises the specialists and wins the gold

Men superg didn't suffer of the painful delay that the women one had, but the condition of weather and snow weren't good neither. A cloudy sky made it again difficult to see and face the many waves of the slope, whilst the humidity had the snow gone soft hence difficult to cope with.
Immediately in the early runs two French skiers showed very convincing runs, first Alexis Pinturault, whose time would eventually set him at the 6th place, but most of all De Tessieres, who came to Schladming as a make up choice, the reserve, whose start happened only due to the injury of Clarey.

Gauthier, whose only podium in World Cup came in Giant Slalom a few seasons ago, knew he had nothing to lose and starting with the early number of 4, he exploited his qualities of GS specialist and the good conditions of the snow, before it worsened passage after passage. The French man had the very best section in the upper part, but his fluid movements made him keep a very interesting pace up to the end.

No-one of the following athletes could get a time close enough to worry the leadership of the two French guys, until American Ted Ligety started. GS world cup leader, despite having showed great improvements in superg throughout the season, had never won a race in that discipline, not even out of World Cup, but that didn't bother him as he knew the setting and the slope could suit his talent and skills. And so it was. Flawless he made an impressive central section and most of all painted lines in the latest steep that no-one else could copy, not even close.
His lead over De Tessieres wasn't that big though and one could believe the specialists of the superg who were soon to go down could better his time, but it just didn't happen. Aided by the fact that the soft snow made it more difficult for the top group to tame their skis and hence the snow, every one of the favourites for the title failed to catch on Ligety and De Tessieres, who both kept their first and second place until the very end.
Austrian hopes for the first medal in this home-world championships grew in the public when first Matthias Mayer and later Hannes Reichelt snatched a temporary placement on the lowest place of the podium, but in the end they were to be undecieved by Aksel Lund Svindal, the greatest favourite for the win, who had to content himself with a bronze medal, whilst the now-former world champion Christof Innerhofer seemed never racing for a medal and placed only 7th.

Getting to know: Ula Hafner

Today I have the pleasure and honour to interview one of the most interesting names among the youngsters of the tour, Slovenian young talent Ula Hafner.

-So Ula, let's introduce yourself first, they know your name already, which is a start, but when and where were you born?
My name is Ula Hafner and I was born on 9th of July 1993 in Ljubljana ,Slovenia

-Describe yourself in 6 words, 3 qualities and 3 flaws.

As qualities I would say that I'm a hard worker, easy going and positive person who likes to talk a lot. As for flaws, well I can be so damn stubborn even in situations when it would be better not to be, as 2nd flaw I would say I'm really grumpy when I'm tired or nervous and my 3rd flaw is that I hate fast changes, it makes me totally confused and lost so let's say that fast adjustability is not my second name.

-When did you start skiing?

When I was 3 years old I say to my mum and dad:'' I want to be a skier!'' and since then I'm skiing but with skiing in local ski club SK Alpetour Škofja Loka I started when I was 5.

-Did you have an hero you tried to emulate when you first started skiing? Do you still have a hero or at least a favourite skier?

Yes I had, when I was little I was a big fan of Janica Kostelić and Bode Miller and I was telling everyone around me that one day I would be as good as them. Now I don't have any hero and when anyone asks me about favourite skier I always say that there is no bad skier in world cup and it's hard to decide who is my favourite. Nonetheless I must say in last season Mikaela Shiffrin totally impressed me so maybe I should say that she's my new hero.

-Did you use to practice any other sport before dedicating yourself to skiing? Do you still enjoy them nowadays on your free time?

Sure, 1st I've been dancing then swimming it was pretty much serious and in between I was trying myself in all other sports, but it was more for fun ,professionally I continued just with skiing.

And yes of course, when skiing season is over I start with running ,swimming ,surfing ,cliff jumping ,tennis ,climbing and all other sports.

-Going back to skiing, what is your happiest memory related to the world of ski races? And what was your biggest disappointment?

My happiest memory is surely my first win on Topolino race, when I was still racing in children categories because even if I knew that I was not a bad skier, I've never thought that I could really win such a big race and I was totally surprised when I won it... so it's really my favourite memory even if I always like to look back and remember all my children categories' races.

Biggest disappointment...hmm...I'll say my wjc (World Junior Championships) in Les Houches and Les Planards- France it was my 2nd year of racing in FIS (season 2009-2010). I expected way too much from those races and then my gs race was a disaster full of mistakes and my slalom shape was good before World junior championship so we were all dreaming about top 10 and after a good 1st run I didn't finish my 2nd run so we were all totally disappointed.

-You've had one of the most impressive first season on FIS circuit, but since then you seem to be floating around that level without any great improvement. This is a very common scenario in women skiing, what do you think is the reason in your case? Do you think it's the same for the other cases too?

You are so right when you say that after first year of my racing in FIS I'm just floating around without any really great improvement. It is hard to say what is the main reason, but truth is that in my1st year of racing in fis I was training with my club, later they put me in women C team and then B team and it was pretty much different because when I came in team there were no money left for alpine skiing in Slovenia and staff was always trying to find good cheap training and, as we all know, it's not always the best so I lost myself a little bit maybe. Before I was always used to do not really much days on snow, but days I had were always efficient, hard and sometimes more difficult than trainings I had with team, so maybe that's one of the reasons, but like I said it's hard to say what went wrong. So if it's hard for myself, I guess it's harder to say for all the others.

-Your first race of this season was in Levi for the Ski WC and you were close to qualify, but since then things didn't exactly go well. How do you think you'll make this season turn to the best?

Levi world cup race, especially upper part of it, was great for me, but afterwards I honestly expected much more from ec races before new year, because on trainings I was still fast but on races I wanted too much and I was doing too many mistakes.

At the end of December I decided to take more than 10 days off, put my head on "off" and now I'm back on snow and I'll continue step by step -first I will go on FIS races then back on EC and try to prepare myself as good as possible for WJC and the rest of season.

-Being an athlet is a matter of goals, what are yours and how do you set them?

My goals at the start of the season were really high, something like: EC top 15 in slalom and GS constantly whole season-long, then WJC top 10 gs + sl and some placements in WC top 30 in slalom or GS, but I like to say that when I'm without goals and I think just on good runs I'm the best, so goals for the rest of season are : do my really best and show best run I can show in given moment.

-Skiing is an individual sport, but having a good team to train with is very important for one's development, do you agree on that?

Of course I agree on that! When you have a good team and especially a good staff who knows how to find good training and good conditions, it's much easier to succeed.

-It's generally believed that girls are a lot meaner to each other, even inside the same team, when it comes to individual sports. Have you ever experienced somethings alike? Do you think it's hard to make good friends in the circuit?

Well on my luck I didn't have such an experience yet -we are all good friends in team ,but honestly I always make good friends with men easier than with girls, maybe thats's because when I was little I was all the time training with boys and playing games with boys, somehow we could say that eversince I have had more men then women friends :) But I think it is not that hard, you can be good friends with another girl, but just until the race begins on race day, we are all fighting for the same goal after all -to win and there is no friends in that game.

-Being a professional athlete means training all year long, for skiers it is -if possible- even harder as you have often to take long journeys to train or race, how do you cope with studies?

Yes, you are right it's far away from being easy and when it comes to school I can say that normally I have just 2 months time to do everything for my school, but at the same time dry-land trainings starts so it's really difficult, still not impossible. I am still in high school which I should have ended last year but because of skiing I risked and so I am one school year behind my school mates.

-What about love?

Love, I'm in relationship with Slovenian cross-country skier Rok Tršan and I have to say that I'm really happy to have him! :)

-Since you are often travelling around the world, what is the thing you miss the most when away from home?

There is more then one thing I miss when I'm travelling around, but let say that i miss the most my bed ,mum and her food, my boyfriend and my dog.

-Anything else you want to say to your fans and our readers?

I would like to say to all my fans and readers thank you a lot for all the support and keep on following alpine ski racing and other sports!

It's been a great pleasure for me, I wish you all the best for the new year and your career!

thanks a lot Giulio!

Giulio Gasparin