87th Conference Of The Austrian Ski Association Wraps Up

At the meeting of the Ski Austria family, deserving athletes and officials were honored and numerous top stars said goodbye. The start of this year's country conference was the workshop in the REDUCE Kultursaal in Bad Tatzmannsdorf.

At the beginning, President Roswitha Stadlober looked back on structural changes within the association and a successful World Cup season, before the ÖSV Presidium, which primarily focused on the youth sector, reviewed the past winter in the individual divisions.

This was followed by a report from the Austria Ski Pool and a review of the successful implementation of the FIS Alpine Junior Ski World Championships 2023 in St. Anton am Arlberg, before the delegates discussed the current status of preparations for the FIS Grass Ski Junior World Championships (02. - August 06, 2023) in Rettenbach. At the end of the overall very harmonious working conference, the discussion and resolution of individual applications as well as a financial forecast for the coming season were on the agenda.

Afterwards, the Austrian Ski Association invited to a festive evening in the exhibition hall in Oberwart, where the association honors were awarded to deserving officials and the most successful Ski Austria athletes of the year 2022/23 were honored. In addition, the farewells of numerous sports greats, such as the two world champions Nicole Schmidhofer (alpine skiing) and Andrea Limbacher (ski cross) were on the program. The emotional highlight of the evening, however, was the official "goodbye" from three-time Olympic champion Matthias Mayer, who was said goodbye to the athletes' pension by the Ski Austria family with standing ovations.

Overview of honors:

officials

• dr Hermann Gruber, President of the Vienna Ski Association for 22 years, was appointed Honorary President of the ÖSV.
• Günther Sulzbacher (OÖ) received the Great Golden Medal of Honor of the ÖSV .

The following officials were awarded the Golden ÖSV Badge of Honor: Helmut Rosmann (ST), Heinz Wallner (K), Oskar Kawasser (V), Franz Steiner (Lower Austria), Richard Schuh (B), Walter Jäger (S), Hubert Gründler ( T).

Honors athletes

The following athletes were awarded the Grand Golden Sports Medal :

• Alpine skiing: Ricarda Haaser, Cornelia Hütter, Nina Ortlieb, Vincent Kriechmayr, Raphael Haaser, Dominik Raschner, Marco Schwarz
  Paraski: Barbara Aigner and Klara Sykora (guide) , Michael Scharnagl and Florian Erharter (guide)
  Ski jumping: Chiara Kreuzer, Julia Mühlbacher, Jacqueline Seifriedsberger, Michael Hayböck, Jan Hörl, Stefan Kraft and Daniel Tschofenig
  Nordic Combined: Lisa Hirner, Annalena Slamik, Martin Fritz, Lukas Greiderer, Franz-Josef Rehrl, Stefan Rettenegger
  Snowboarding: Sabine Schöffmann, Daniela Ulbing, Pia Zerkhold, Arvid Auner, Alexander Payer
  Biathlon: Lisa Hauser, David Komatz
  Skicross: Katrin Ofner
  Freeski: Lukas Mullauer

The Diamond Sports Medal of the ÖSV received:

• Ski jumping: Eva Pinkelnig
  Nordic Combined: Johannes Lamparter
  Paraski: Carina Edlinger and guide Tobias Eberhard (cross-country skiing), Veronika Aigner and guide Elisabeth Aigner, Johannes Aigner and guide Matteo Fleischmann, Markus Salcher (all alpine skiing)
  Snowboard: Anna Gasser, Jakob Dusek, Fabian Obmann and Andreas Prommegger

farewells

The following long-standing Ski Austria athletes said goodbye:

• Nicole Schmidhofer, Ramona Siebenhofer, Marc Digruber and Matthias Mayer (all alpine skiing),
  Roman Rabl (Paraski),
  Philipp Orter (Nordic Combined),
  Markus Schiffner (ski jumping)
  Christian Hoffmann (cross-country skiing/ski mountaineering)
  Andrea Limbacher (ski cross)