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New faces set to start for Team Austria in Ruka
21 November 2014 года
New faces set to start for Team Austria in Ruka
Today’s internal qualification competition, which the Austrian team held in Ruka, led to a World Cup team with multiple new faces. 20 athletes started and fought for eight World Cup spots for the first competitions of the new season next weekend.

Junior World Championship medalists Philipp Orter and Martin Fritz had fixed spots as they have a personalised start right in the World Cup. Next to them, Lukas Klapfer and Willi Denifl, who did not travel to Finland due to the impending birth of his child, were set by the coaches as well as young Paul Gerstgraser who won the „first snow competition“ with the Finnish team in Rovaniemi last weekend.

The other five start rights went to the following athletes:

- Bernhard Gruber
- Mario Seidl
- Bernhard Flaschberger
- Christoph Bieler
- Fabian Steindl

Head coach Christoph Eugen was very satisfied with this result: „We want the athletes to start who currently are in the best shape and we have seen that quite clearly today. Especially the performance of the younger athletes made me very happy. Now they have taken the first step and now they have to keep their calm, collect experiences and get some tips from the older athletes. The past has shown time and again that Christoph Bieler, Willi Denifl, Lukas Klapfer and Bernhard Gruber can always go for the top results. We have a great mix of older and younger athletes for the World Cup opening now.“

The Austrian team will travel back home tomorrow for some last days of recovery before going back up to Ruka next Wednesday.

Source: fis-ski.com 



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