The rough feelings at the farewell, at the medal or the unhappy end: at the ski world championships in are there were touching stories over almost two weeks and many athletes who will not forget the time in sweden for a long time. A selection:
MIKAELA THE GREAT: two golds, one bronze: mikaela shiffrin has won a medal at each of her starts in are, impressively underlining her special status as the most successful athlete at the world championships. Four slalom gold medals in a row is a world championship record. And the american is still only 23 years old.
GOODBYE, DRAMA-QUEEN: the body battered, the world cup record of ingemar stenmark unmatched. And yet: with a bronze medal in the downhill at the end of her outstanding career, lindsey vonn showed it to everyone once again. Even itself. She pays to the best athletes in history.
ADIEU, konig AKSEL: the nobility of norway and sweden came to see him off, his compatriots had the tribunes firmly in their grip: aksel lund svindal said goodbye to skiing retirement with silver in the downhill race. It was seldom louder in the arena of are, never more so. Skiing loses a very, very rough man.
VICKY, THE ZAHE: gold in super-G missed viktoria rebensburg by 0.07 seconds, bronze by 0.02 seconds: the world championships began with a bitter fourth place. Silver in the giant slalom was a strong performance – but still seemed imperfect for germany’s best racer because of the prospect of gold up to the last gates.
ANNA AND THE SILVER AT HOME: anna swenn larsson can look down on the world championship piste from her apartment in are and won the first medal for the swedish hosts with silver in the slalom on saturday. "This is a dream come true," said the athlete, who was applauded by king carl gustaf and queen silvia at the award ceremony.
STEFAN, THE PECHVOGEL: he came with a shoulder cuff and was a secret tip for the giant slalom. But then stefan luitz fell and headed for the hospital with a bandage around his left knee even before the end of the first run. Inner ligament tear, season over. He would certainly like to erase the winter from his memory quickly.
WENDY AND THE DOUBLE GOLD: gold in the combination, gold in the team event – the surprising wendy holdner was well on the way to becoming the athlete of the world championships instead of shiffrin. Then she risked a little too much in the slalom on the way to her third title and was eliminated. But the swiss will still have a lot of fun with it.
NICOLE AND THE UNCHANGED SKI NATION: for the first time in 37 years, the austrian women remained without a medal at a world championship. Especially in the speed events, the team around three-time season winner and super-G title defender nicole schmidhofer and ramona siebenhofer, who won twice in cortina in january, was a real success.
MARCEL, THE GREAT: at least marcel hirscher could be relied on in the alpine republic. After placing second in the giant slalom, the best skier of the present day won gold in the slalom on the last day and saved austria from a world championship without a title. With a total of seven world championship gold medals he caught up with the record holder toni sailer.