Faivre Returns To Head
Following a year away, Mathieu Faivre returns to the HEAD Worldcup Rebels. With HEAD, the French athlete won three World Championship titles and an Olympic Bronze medal. Also new to the HEAD team are Meta Hrovat from Slovenia, Armand Marchant from Belgium, and Camille Rast from Switzerland.
"We are very pleased that Mathieu Faivre is coming back to us and that we can work with him again," explains HEAD Racing Director Rainer Salzgeber. "He has a very difficult season behind him and I'm sure he imagined things quite differently. It is now clear how important the team is to each athlete. Our service people are able offer great support, so we are looking forward to a very interesting future together again. Mathieu is a real specialist in the Giant Slalom. He gave us a lot of feedback, which has helped us develop some great equipment. So this is a good opportunity for us to benefit from his being on board again, as we have in the past."
"I am very happy to be a Rebel again. I can hardly wait to get back to racing with this superb team. Home sweet home!" is how Mathieu Faivre sums up his return.
"Taking the next step with us"
"The situation is much the same with Camille Rast. She had super results, was well established, and then left us," says Rainer Salzgeber. "She is one of the young athletes who have already shown what they can do very well. That's why I'm very happy that she has also come back to us. I am also particularly pleased that Meta Hrovat has joined us. Circumstances caused her to lose interest in ski racing. It's good that she's making a comeback now that she's realised that skiing is what she wants to do after all. She can take the next step with us. And, we have had an eye on Armand Marchant for quite some time. He is a Slalom specialist and can give us good feedback in this discipline. Armand is an athlete who always skis flat out. It's fun to have a skier like him on the team who doesn't come from a classic winter sports country."
"We can close the gap relatively quickly"
"In the speed disciplines, we have lost three athletes from the top-7 in the world rankings: Feuz, Mayer and Clarey," emphasises Rainer Salzgeber. "This is, of course, a very special situation. It is not only us that miss the three of them, but everybody who is into alpine ski racing. Nevertheless, we have a team with whom we want to achieve a lot. We have athletes on our team who are capable of coming up with one or two surprises. That is why I reckon we can close the gap relatively quickly."
Beat Feuz, Matthias Mayer and Johan Clarey have ended their skiing careers
Beat Feuz ended his unique World Cup career after 16 years. The Swiss athlete's track record is impressive: Feuz was Olympic Downhill champion in Beijing in 2022 and World Champion in the Downhill in St. Moritz in 2017. Four times in a row - from 2018 to 2021 - he won the Crystal Globe in the Downhill. 16 World Cup victories, including 13 in the Downhill and three in Super-G, are on his list of successes. In 2021 and 2022, Feuz won the Downhill races on the Streif run in Kitzbühel a total of three times. Matthias Mayer's retirement last season came as a surprise. The Austrian athlete set a very special record during his career. He became the first alpine ski racer to win a Gold medal in each of three consecutive Winter Olympics: the 2014 Downhill in Sochi, the 2018 Super-G in Pyeongchang and the 2022 Super-G in Beijing. Johan Clarey, whose last race was in Soldeu, also looks back on an amazing career after 20 years of competing in the World Cup. The French athlete won Silver in the Downhill at the Beijing 2022 Olympics and Silver in the Super-G at the 2019 World Championships in Aare. He stood on the podium in the World Cup eleven times. Johan Clarey set several age records: He won the Silver in Beijing at the age of 41. This makes him the oldest alpine ski athlete to win a medal. At the age of 42, he finished second on the podium in the Downhill in Kitzbühel this season - there has never been an older athlete to manage that.
More retirements from alpine ski racing
At the end of last season, Leif Kristian Nestvold-Haugen and Fabian Wilkens Solheim from Norway, Marie-Michele Gagnon from Canada, Coralie Frasse Sombet and Esther Paslier from France, and Samu Torsti from Finland, all announced that they are retiring from ski racing.
HEAD again enters the new season as No. 1 in alpine skiing
The HEAD Worldcup Rebels yet again reasserted their leading position in the alpine skiing World Cup in the 2022/23 season: In the FIS Brand Ranking HEAD was the clear number one with 8,750 points. At the highlight of the season, the World Championships in Courchevel/Meribel, the HEAD team was also the best ski brand with 13 individual medals. In the World Cup, the Rebels were on the podium 67 times - even more than the previous season.
Profile: Mathieu Faivre (FRA)
- Born: 18 January 1992 in Nice (France)
- Skiing club: CS Isola 2000
- Disciplines: Giant Slalom, Super-G
- Successes: World Champion Giant Slalom and Parallel Slalom Cortina 2021, World Champion Team Event St. Moritz 2017, Bronze Medal Giant Slalom Olympic Games Beijing 2022, two World Cup victories in Giant Slalom (Val d'Isère 2016, Bansko 2021), a further eight World Cup podiums in Giant Slalom
Profile: Meta Hrovat (SLO)
- Born: 2 March 1998 in Slovenia
- Skiing club: ASK Kranjska Gora
- Disciplines: Giant Slalom, Slalom
- Successes: three-time Junior World Champion, Team Event Sochi 2016, Slalom Davos 2018, Slalom Fassa Valley 2019, four World Cup podiums in Giant Slalom
Profile: Armand Marchant (BEL)
- Born: 14 December 1997 in Liège (Belgium)
- Skiing club: BE Ski Team
- Disciplines: Slalom, Giant Slalom
- Successes: two World Cup podiums in Slalom (5th place Zagreb 2020, 7th place Val d'Isère 2021)
Profile: Camille Rast (SUI)
- Born: 9 July 1999 in Vétroz (Switzerland)
- Skiing club: SC Vétroz
- Disciplines: Slalom, Giant Slalom
- Successes: two-time Junior World Champion, Slalom Aare 2017 and Team Event Davos 2018, one World Cup podium (2nd place Team Event Soldeu 2023), a further eight top-ten finishes in the World Cup
