Ski racer Alexander Schmid sensationally won gold in the parallel competition at the Alpine World Championships in France. The Allgäu prevailed against the Austrian Dominik Raschner in the final in Méribel on Wednesday and celebrated the greatest success of his career so far.
It was a historic triumph: The athlete from SC Fischen brought the German Ski Association (DSV) their first medal in the current title fights and their first World Championship gold since Maria Höfl-Riesch won the alpine combination ten years ago in Schladming. Hansjörg Tauscher had won the last individual gold medal for German men at a World Championships in 1989 in Vail in the downhill.
Schmid’s teammate Linus Straßer failed in the round of 16. In the women’s quarterfinals, Lena Dürr lost to eventual world champion Maria Therese Tviberg from Norway.
The parallel races celebrated their world championship premiere two years ago in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. At that time, Schmid finished fourth. Overall, he likes the format very much. The 28-year-old was one of the German teams that won bronze at the 2021 World Cup in Cortina and Olympic silver at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
This time, too, he snaked his way down the slope impressively several times. In the first round Schmid defeated the Italian Filippo Della Vite, in the second the Slovenian Zan Kranjec and in the semifinals the Norwegian Timon Haugan. In the gold fight with Raschner, he put in an outstanding first run and then didn’t let his lead be taken away.
In the parallel competition, the athletes compete against each other twice in each round. The blue course in Méribel was a tad faster than the red one.
Straßer threaded against the Italian Luca de Aliprandini on Wednesday and was eliminated. Dürr first prevailed against Nina O’Brien from the USA and then lost to Norway’s Tviberg.
