Ski racer Emma Aicher is the great German hope ahead of the Olympic winter. However, the fact that she is considered the upcoming overall World Cup winner does not please everyone.
If it were up to Felix Neureuther, Emma Aicher could be “a candidate for the overall World Cup in a few years.” “If everything goes according to plan,” head coach Andi Puelacher also knows, “Emma could well be ready in due time to compete for the overall World Cup.”
In short: Aicher, only 21 years old, is considered a potential successor to Rosi Mittermaier, Katja Seizinger, or Maria Höfl-Riesch – all of whom have won the big crystal globe.
Emma Aicher wants to compete for the overall World Cup one day
Aicher? “Still has many areas to work on”
There is still a lot of uncertainty in the statements – and that suits Wolfgang Maier just fine. The “chatter” about Aicher and the overall World Cup is as annoying to the DSV sports director as tinnitus. “Yes,” Maier also knows all too well, as an all-rounder who competes in all four disciplines, “she has the prerequisites. But she still has many areas to work on.” Neureuther sees it the same way: “You have to give her time,” he warns, but what Aicher is already achieving is “amazing.” And indeed it is.
What no one denies: Emma Aicher is going into the Olympic winter as the great hope of the Alpine skiers of the German Ski Association (DSV), which begins on Saturday with the women’s giant slalom on the Rettenbach glacier high above Sölden (the men’s race on Sunday). Her two World Cup victories last winter, one in downhill and one in Super-G, were the only two for Germany. She has also already won an Olympic silver and a bronze World Championship medal with the team.
Not a woman of many words
Aicher, born and raised in Sweden, is not a woman of many words. At the season presentation by her equipment supplier in Sölden, she answered one question and that was it; at the following DSV get-together, she answered two. “I’m just like that, I don’t talk much,” says Aicher. That people are bothered by this reserve does not bother her in turn – just as many things don’t bother her anyway. “I’m pretty good at staying calm and trying to do my job.”
Aicher now lives alone in Thalgau near Salzburg, which means: She is self-sufficient. This fits well with Maier’s view. He says: Athletes must take more personal responsibility for themselves and their actions; it is no longer enough to simply do what the coaches prescribe. Conversely, he wishes that coaches would respond to the needs of the athletes. Aicher, Maier emphasizes, “is a clever girl. She knows what she’s doing.”
Overall World Cup victory as a goal? “Yeah”
Although, Maier says, Aicher also “needs cornerstones. It’s not like that. Because otherwise, Emma is off and about. Then there’s partying and who knows what.” That’s not bad now, “partying is part of hard work too, but you have to put it in the right context.” This means for the coaches: Aicher should not be forced into a mold, “you have to tolerate her sloppiness and her laissez-faire attitude in this sport. She just needs to understand when she can go overboard and when not.”
Because one thing Aicher must lose under no circumstances, says Maier: The unbridled joy of skiing, her desire to compete in all four disciplines. Which brings us back to the overall World Cup. Isn’t that a goal for her at some point? Aicher’s answer: “Yeah.”