HEAD PRESS RELEASE – 26 MARCH 2024 HEAD Worldcup Rebels are the clear number one again in 2023/24. With 7,760 points in the FIS Brand Ranking; HEAD once again confirms its leading position in the Alpine Ski World Cup during the 2023/24 season. Lara Gut-Behrami’s performance is outstanding – the Swiss athlete wins the Crystal Globe for the overall World Cup and two more Crystal Globes in the Giant Slalom and Super-G. The Downhill Crystal Globe goes to Cornelia Hütter from Austria. The HEAD Worldcup Rebels stood on top of the podium 17 times this season. The HEAD team also notched up an additional 22 second and 17 third-place finishes.  “This has been an exceptionally successful season for us,” says HEAD Racing Director Rainer Salzgeber. “Lara Gut-Behrami was outstanding in how she confidently won the overall World Cup and two disciplines. Cornelia Hütter also more than deserved to win the Crystal Globe in the Downhill with her brilliant victory in the final race in Saalbach. In the women’s Downhill and Super-G, even more athletes on our team closely competed for the Crystal Globe. We were also among the front runners in the Slalom. The women’s team was supreme. With the men’s team, we knew what to expect following the retirement of many of our athletes before the season got underway. In the technical disciplines, losing Alexis Pinturault hurt us a lot, of course. Still, we were not far away from victory in the Slalom and reached the podium in the Giant Slalom. In the speed disciplines, things were close, and luck was not always on our side. Vincent Kriechmayr’s two Super-G victories were excellent. Everything considered, the men’s team also had a very satisfactory season.”  ???? GEPA pictures Lara Gut-Behrami: “It’s a fantastic feeling.” Lara Gut-Behrami staged an awesome season in the snow. The Swiss athlete won the overall World Cup for the second time since 2015/16 with a total of eight victories this season and another eight podium finishes. The 32-year-old also won the Giant Slalom World Cup for the first time in her career. The Super-G Crystal Globe also went to the exceptionally talented skier. “I didn’t expect to win three Crystal Globes this season. For me, this is more than incredible. It is a fantastic feeling that I was able to win the World Cup Crystal Globe again. The Giant Slalom globe means a lot to me. For me, it’s all about the Giant Slalom. If you are fast in this discipline, you can also do well in the other disciplines. The Super-G is a special discipline for me. The fact that I’ve been able to win this globe five times makes me proud,” says a delighted Gut-Behrami.  ???? GEPA pictures Cornelia Hütter: “That was a gripping finish!” Three HEAD Worldcup Rebels were in the running for the Downhill Crystal Globe in the season’s final race in Saalbach: Gut-Behrami, Stephanie Venier and Cornelia Hütter. Cornelia Hütter raced to her sixth World Cup victory, her second win in the Downhill, which took her to the top of the overall ranking. 28 points behind the Austrian, Gut-Behrami from Switzerland finished the Downhill World Cup in second place. “I was nervous and felt as though I was slow. I saw the number one displayed as I crossed the line; it was such a gripping finish! You can see how emotional, exciting, and fun racing is. It’s unbelievable,“ is how Hütter analyzed the event. “I know that I am still holding back a bit in the Downhill, so I’m very proud that I’ve managed to achieve this result over the whole season.” Hütter, Gut-Behrami, and Austrian athlete Stephanie Venier finished first, second, and fourth in the final Downhill ranking.  ???? GEPA pictures Four HEAD Worldcup Rebels are in the top 5 in the Super-G. The HEAD team did just as well in the Super-G. Chasing the winner Gut-Behrami, three more HEAD Worldcup Rebels finished in the top five in the overall ranking: Hütter in third place, Venier fourth, and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie from Norway finishing fifth. A special highlight was the event in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, where HEAD celebrated a brilliant triple victory in the first Super-G with Hütter, Vickhoff Lie, and Gut-Behrami taking all three places on the podium. That was followed by a double victory by Gut-Behrami and Hütter in the second Super-G.  ???? GEPA pictures  ???? GEPA pictures Lena Dürr finishes second in the Slalom In the Giant Slalom, Sara Hector took third place overall. The Swedish athlete won the Giant Slalom race at the event in Jasna. There was also a HEAD Worldcup Rebel on the podium in the Slalom season’s ranking: Lena Dürr finished second. The German athlete notched three second places and one third place in slalom this season. A J Hurt enjoyed an impressive season with her career’s first two World Cup podium finishes. The US athlete was third in both the Kranjska Gora slalom and the Soldeu Giant Slalom.  ???? GEPA pictures  ???? GEPA pictures Vincent Kriechmayr finishes second in the Super-G ranking Vincent Kriechmayr was the number one in the speed disciplines on the HEAD men’s team this season. The Austrian athlete won the two Super-G races in Val Gardena and in Kvitfjell and came second in the season’s ranking in this discipline. In the Downhill, the 32-year-old finished the 2024 season ranked fourth. Guglielmo Bosca was delighted to end the season in fifth place in the Super-G season ranking. At the competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Italian athlete came second to bag his first World Cup podium.  ???? GEPA pictures The young Swiss athlete Franjo von Allmen also attracted attention by finishing third in the Super-G in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, his first podium on the World Cup. Joan Verdu scores first-ever podium for Andorra. Verdu and Andorra celebrated a historic World Cup season. The 28-year-old athlete finished third to take a World Cup podium for the first time in his career in the Giant Slalom in Val d’Isere. This is not only his first podium but also the first in the history of his country. Verdu proved again that he is a top contender by finishing in second place in the final Giant Slalom of the season in Saalbach. Verdu was voted “Rebel of the Year” in recognition of his amazing performance.  ???? GEPA pictures Atle Lie McGrath just misses victory Following his return to the World Cup, Atle Lie McGrath has shown this season that he is one of the best ski athletes in the world. The Norwegian athlete raced to second place at the classic Slalom event on the Chuenisbärgli run in Adelboden. The 23-year-old missed his third World Cup victory by just two-hundredths of a second. In Wengen, he missed victory by just one-tenth of a second, having clocked the fastest time on the first run.  ???? GEPA pictures Franjo von Allmen & Dzenifera Germane climb to the top “Another very positive achievement this season was from the athletes that climbed their way up to finish among the best in the world,” says Rainer Salzgeber. “This includes Dzenifera Germane on the women’s team, who has repeatedly finished in the top 15. Franjo von Allmen stands out on the men’s team as having risen the furthest this season. There aren’t many athletes who managed to reach the podium in their twelfth World Cup race. I don’t want to build up unreasonable expectations for next season, but we are looking forward to the future together with great anticipation. I also hope Lukas Feurstein and Moritz Zudrell will reach the next level. Ilaria Ghisalberti, who won the Europa Cup overall ranking in the Giant Slalom, is also an athlete with a promising World Cup career ahead them.”  ???? GEPA pictures  ???? GEPA pictures Ragnhild Mowinckel and Christine Scheyer finish their careers Ragnhild Mowinckel from Norway and Christine Scheyer from Austria will finish their careers at the end of this season. Ragnhild Mowinckel won two Silver medals (Giant Slalom and Downhill) at the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, as well as a Bronze at the 2019 World Championships in Åre in the Combined event and a Bronze at the 2023 World Championships in Courchevel/Méribel in the Giant Slalom. She notched up a total of four World Cup victories, including Cortina, where this season she won the Downhill for the first time. Christine Scheyer’s World Cup career highlight is winning the Downhill race in Zauchensee in 2017.  ???? GEPA pictures  ???? GEPA pictures “Optimize as much as possible right now” “In the week after the competitions in Saalbach, we want to start testing straight away,” says Rainer Salzgeber, looking ahead to the preparations for next season. “We have been doing trials with a number of optimizations together with some of the athletes. We want to try out which of these we will implement going forward. These tests are scheduled to run until the end of April. We are going to optimize as much as possible right now for the next season. “The HEAD Worldcup Rebels’ top results:   |
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