Germany focuses on Schmid for the opening, Shiffrin for the trio in a US national team with many new features

The German choices for Soelden, with only two women at the start and a sextet at the male level, while in the US there are still the doubts O''Brien and Resnick, while the quartet of men will see the debut of the super champion jr. g, Isaiah Nelson.

Wednesday 19 October 2022 5 minutes reading time

Last official, for the giants who will open the World Cup 2022/23, Saturday and Sunday on the "glass" of Rettenbach in Soelden. It's up to Germany, which has announced the names of the eight athletes registered for the opening in the Oetztal: a couple for the women's race on Saturday, with Jessica Hilzinger and Marlene Schmotz who will aim to collect at least a few points, while there is hope more for the male team. If the umpteenth return of Stefan Luitz still hides some unknowns for the one who for years has been the German reference point in the discipline, the tip is an athlete like Alexander Schmid who gives guarantees to obtain a weight result. At the starting gate we will also see Anton Grammel, Fabian Gratz, Linus Strasser and Julian Rauchfuss. They have not yet been put in black and white (usually the federation always awaits the eve of the races), but the choices of the United States are now made, as announced by "Ski Racing Media" in these hours: there will be three absolute rookies in World Cup and a couple of doubts remain regarding the women's team, which will count on seven athletes at the start if Nina O''Brien, expected to return after the crash in the Olympic giant, and Allie Resnick, who was injured instead in the summer period in New Zealand, will confirm the presence on the Rettenbach. The quintet will certainly be led by Mikaela Shiffrin, by far the woman at the top of the odds for this opening, she who has already triumphed in Soelden in 2014 and 2021. Together with the World Cup holder, here are Paula Moltzan and Katie Hensien, but also two very young at the absolute first in the maximum circuit: it is the 2003 Stella Johansson class, the only one out of the national framework and already seen in the European Cup anyway, and the twenty year old (2002) Ava Sunshine Jemison, winner of the general classification of Nor-Am Cup last season. Four men, on the other hand, are ready for the first giant of the year: on Sunday the tip will be River Radamus, who has really grown a lot in 2021/22, with Tommy Ford who will have to slowly find the feeling after returning to the Olympics following a long stop over a year (after the devastating fall of Adelboden 2021), Ryan Cochran-Siegle and rookie Isaiah Nelson, who we will see for the first time in CdM, but already able to win a junior world title, a few months ago in the youth world championship of Panorama, in that case in super-g. The boy born in 2001, in fact, won the internal qualification for Team USA, which took place on Tuesday in Val Senales.

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