The new alpine skiing World Cup season starts this weekend on the Sölden glacier with the first giant slalom competitions of the season. The interesting questions of the season are: is this Shiffrin’s record season, and will the next Shiffrin come from Albania?
The starting Alpine Skiing Women’s World Cup season is headed to the overall cup winner, the United States Mikaela Shiffrin under. Shiffrin started his World Cup career just a few days ago at the age of 16, so at the age of 27, he has already been around the slopes for 12 years. Like Shiffrin, they started their careers at the age of 16, among other things Lara Gut-Behrami and Janica Kostelicand each of them has won prestigious medals and crystal balls in their careers.
Now this same path is being built for the 15-year-old For Lara Coltur, who starts his own World Cup career in Sölden – in the colors of Albania. Coltur has been popular in alpine circles for a long time and, among other things, is a prize medalist in Liechtenstein Tina Weirather announced new Mikaela Shiffrin from Coltur on her social media account.
But, how can Albania become the next big alpine star? Of course, Albania has had calculators in value competitions, without much success. Erjan Tola has raced a few slalom and giant slalom races in the World Cup, but failed to score.
Coltur’s background is in a larger alpine country, i.e. Italy. His mother is an Olympic champion Daniela Ceccarelli. Ceccarelli won Olympic gold in the super giant slalom in 2002 in Salt Lake City. Throughout his life, Coltur has been raised in the world of alpine skiing and succeeding there. From the beginning of the season, he won both the overall cup, the slalom cup and the giant slalom cup at the South American Cup and thus made Albanian history by winning the continental cup for the country for the first time.
He changed his citizenship with the help of his mother. Mother, Lara and her brother got their Albanian passports in May. Ceccarelli is the coach of the Albanian women’s national team, and with the change of citizenship, he can continue coaching his daughter as he wishes. In addition, this way Colturi gets to participate in all the World Cup competitions he wants. In Italy, he would have had to qualify for representative positions.
In Italy, there have been disappointments with the choice of family, but it is even easier for people under the age of 16 to change their nationality than at a later age. Quite a lot of expectations are already loaded on the young calculator – right from the opening race. However, it will be interesting to watch how Coltur’s story takes off during the season.
– I heard about Coltur for the first time already last winter. It’s rare to hear from someone at such an early stage. I believe that he will get points already in Sölden. I’ve seen his bills, and I must say he’s strong, Urheilu’s alpine expert Kalle Palander joins those praising Coltur.
How much does Kilde help Shiffrin?
Last season was tough for Shiffrin, especially the Olympics, where she went home without a single medal. He had big problems in his parade events, giant slalom and slalom, and in both he stayed by the side of the track for a long time worrying after stopping in the first rounds.
Shiffrin’s season still included a lot of podium places: a total of 14, including five victories. Last season was already the third season when the cup victories in the sports were beyond Shiffrin’s reach. But competing in four sports at a high level brought him the biggest crystal ball, the overall competition win – for the fourth time already.
Shiffrin seems to have survived her father’s death already mentally better. Aleksander Aamodt Kilden finding a life partner has helped Shiffrin to find the joy of both life and counting. Shiffrin has said that from Kilde he also gets good sparring help and support in training, especially in speed sports. And he intends to compete in speed sports this season – even more than before.
Shiffrin has 74 World Cup race wins at the start of the season. Lindsay Vonn’s the record is eight wins away, to Ingemar Stenmark 12 wins to go. Will Shiffrin, who is increasing his starts, be able to become the all-time number one already this season?
To Stenmark, Shiffrin still has quite a way to go, especially since in the US’s parade event the scepter has passed to Slovakia To Petra Vlhova. So last season he celebrated five victories, even though he already counted many super giant slalom races at that time.
– I’m looking forward to seeing how much Kilde has helped and is able to help Shiffrin in speed sports, especially in the lunge landing position and landing line, says Palander.
Last season, the Finnish women scored the most World Cup points Rosa Pohjolainen is on the sidelines recovering from knee cruciate ligament surgery. They are mainly competing for the World Cup representative places this season Riikka Honkanen and Erika Pykäläinen. The latter of them will be seen in the opening race of the season in Sölden. Last season, Honkanen managed to score once: in Levi’s slalom after being 28th.
During the season, shows several World Cup competitions and the Alpine World Championships. Women’s giant slalom from Sölden on TV2 on Saturday 22.10. at 10:55 a.m.
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