Austria Restructures Alpine Competitive Staffing

Preparations for the 2024/25 World Cup season are in full swing. In the course of intensive analysis discussions, personnel changes were made within the association.

"We have mainly made two significant changes in the women's and men's World Cup giant slalom groups. Michael Pircher has left the team, and from now on this group will be led by Wolfgang Auderer. For the women, Christian Perner is moving from the European Cup men to the giant slalom World Cup -Women's team and takes on responsibility as group trainer," explains Herbert Mandl, sports director for alpine skiing.

There are also changes in the junior section of the Austrian Ski Association. Harald Kirchmair will succeed Jürgen Kriechbaum as head of young talent and will lead the entire young Alpine skiing division of the ÖSV from May 1, 2024.

Kirchmair, himself a former ski racer, has worked as managing director and sporting director of the Neustift Ski Middle School in recent years and is also a trainer advisor in the Tyrolean Ski Association. “Harald has extensive experience in the youth sector, is a very careful trainer and has a lot of know-how in the organizational area. I look forward to the cooperation. At this point I would also like to thank Jürgen Kriechbaum for his work over the last few years and wish him all the best in his new job," adds Mandl.

Changes in the area of ​​alpine skiing for women and men

There are four World Cup and two European Cup groups for the Ski Austria women and the Ski Austria men.

Christoph Alster (WC Speed ​​West), David Fill (WC Speed ​​East) and Klaus Mayrhofer (WC Technology) will also be in the next season, the WC3 team will be led by Christian Perner, who has worked for the Ski Austria men in the European Cup and the World Cup for the last six years . Reinhard Fernsebner, who has been under contract with the British ski team since the 2017/18 season, is returning to the Austrian Ski Association after seven years and taking over the women's EC-3 team. Michael Rahm becomes group trainer for the EC-Technik women.

Following the departure of Michael Pircher, there is a new WC-4 group trainer in Wolfgang Auderer in men's racing director Marko Pfeifer's team. The Tyrolean has worked for Swiss-Ski for the past five years. With Sepp Brunner (WC-1), Werner Franz (WC-2) and Martin Kroisleitner (WC-3) there are no changes to the remaining World Cup teams. In the European Cup there are two new responsible group trainers: Günther Steiner (EC-Technology) and Janez Slivnik (EC-Speed). Steiner most recently worked as an assistant coach in the WC-4 team, Slivnik is returning to the ÖSV after five years with the Slovenian Ski Association.