54th WMC Skiing 2018 – Hochfilzen / Fieberbrunn (AUT) – Update – Competition Day 1

4 GOLD MEDALS FOR THE HOST COUNTRY!

HOCHFILZEN / FIEBERBRUNN (AUT) – The Opening Ceremony of the 54th edition of the World Military Skiing Championship took place on Wednesday 4 April in the Hochfilzen Biathlon Stadium in presence of the 442 participants from 25 CISM Member Nations (25 Chiefs of Mission, 116 Officials and 301 athletes (205 male and 96 female)). Colonel (Rtd) Walter Van Velthoven, CISM Treasurer General, Member of the BoD and Official CISM Representative of the event, Brigadier General Gernot Gasser, Chief of the Austrian Delegation to CISM, Lieutenant-Colonel Jure Velepec, PCSC Skiing, Colonel Gernot Rittenschober, PCSC Parachuting, Dr. Joszef Schöchl, President of the State Parliament of Salzburg, Mr. Konrad Walk, the Mayor of Hochfilzen, the 25 Chiefs of Mission and several local and international high dignitaries attended the event which featured the Military Band Salzburg and saw parachutists bringing the Austrian and CISM Flag on the venue. After the speech of the OCR and Mr. Joseph Schökl, Member of the Federal Parliament, the Historical Rifle Company also performed a gun-salute!

The first competitions started yesterday, April 5, with great performances from the Austrian delegation.

In the Biathlon men’s 10km sprint event, the Swiss athlete Benjamin Weger achieved an impressive performance as he took the gold medal with a 29 seconds-lead ahead of Andrejs Rastorgujevs (LAT) while the local biathlete Dominik Landertinger took bronze. In the women’s 7,5km sprint event, Franziska Hildebrand from Germany grabbed the gold medal ahead of Yuliia Dzhima (UKR) and Kinga Mitoraj (POL). Despite these disappointing results in the individual events, the Austrian delegation managed to win two titles by winning the biathlon sprint team male and female events. The Austrian male team, composed of Dominik Landertinger, Simon Eder and Sven Grossegger showed out to be stronger than Switzerland and Ukraine. The Austrian female team, composed of Lisa Hauser, Julia Schwaiger and Dunja Zdouc was faster than Poland and Ukraine.

In the men’s Giant Slalom event, the Slovenian skier Stefan Hadalin won the two runs to secure a deserved gold medal while Bastian Meisen (GER) and Marco Schwarz (AUT) respectively took silver and bronze. Germany (Bastian Meisen, Julian Rauchfuss, Sebastian Holzmann and Paul Sauter) took the first place of the men’s team event ahead of Switzerland and Austria.

Austria won another title with the gold medal of Elisabeth Kappaurer in the female giant slalom. Her teammate Elisabeth Reisinger won bronze just 0,53 seconds behind the German silver medalist Maren Wiesler. With these excellent individual results, the Austrian female team (Elisabeth Kappaurer, Elisabeth Reisinger and Stephanie Resch) while Germany and Switzerland completed the podium.

In Paraski, the athletes already performed the two ski runs and five accuracy jumps. The final jump will take place today, April 6, and give us the names of the medalists. Austria is currently leading the four events: in the Female event, Julia Schosser has a 117 points-lead on Mariia Lukianova (RUS) while Deborah Ferrand from France is ranked third. In the male event, Sebastian Graser, with 13 points, is leading the provisional ranking ahead of Bečan Matej (SLO – 51 points) and his teammate Manuel Sulzbacher (AUT – 71 points). Sebastian Graser is also ranked first of the junior male / female provisional ranking ahead Sulzbacher while Anton Petrik is on the third step of the podium. Finally, in the mixed team event, Austria is currently one-step ahead of Slovenia and Switzerland.