World Cup success for Simon Stickl.

The hard summer training on Skitrax has already made itself felt! The German Ski Cross National Team showed a fantastic team performance at the Ski Cross World Cup in St. Johann in Tyrol on 5.1.2009. Three athletes (Simon Stickl, Anna Wörner and Heidi Zacher) qualified directly for the Olympic Games in Vancouver. With Thomas Fischer and Andreas Schauer another two athletes have already booked 50% of the Olympic ticket!

Sensational was the performance of Simon Stickl on both days. Already in the qualification he was the fastest skicrosser. He showed this sovereign performance also on the final day. In all "heats" he was the fastest at the start and after four "heats" he was the deserved World Cup winner, ahead of Daron Rahlves (USA), former alpine world champion and Kitzbühl Hahnenkamm winner in the downhill. "This is even more important to me than the win, because the Olympics was the big goal this year," Stickl said after his second top ten finish in the World Cup. In the women's race, Anna Wörner scored 4th place in the final and Heidi Zacher finished a great 14th.

It was already clear in the summer that the German national ski cross team is a force to be reckoned with. In addition to the summer ski training on the glaciers, intensive training took place from July to September on a SKITRAX synthetic track. As material supplier for the Skicrosser in the German ski federation the Oberaudorfer artificial mat manufacturer SKITRAX Europe, made available an approx. 20 x 2m long plastic runway to the athletes. 

With a start gate in the steep terrain and the 20 meter long plastic runway, thousands of starts were trained. Under scientific supervision, fast starts with high arm thrust were intensively trained and improved again and again by all athletes. This novel training method laid the foundation for a successful Olympic winter season. "I am happy for the German athletes that with the sporting director of the DSV Skicrosser Heli Herdt developed start and push concept, has already brought athletes into the world class," said Wolfgang Schmidt, Managing Director Skitrax in the finish area of the Ski World Cup in St. Johann.

"The victory is important to set accents, to inspire people more," said Heli Herdt, praising the races of Stickl and his opponents. "It was like the gladiators in the arena in Rome."

Next summer, plans call for a larger and longer synthetic track with lift at the DSV training center. But then with the fast new development "SKITRAX 2010": almost as fast as on real snow! Skitrax - always where snow is missing!