5th in Saalbach, 3rd in Madonna: the races before Christmas went extremely well for me – even though it didn’t look that way at first.

A crash in training left me with a blocked sacroiliac joint, and that mainly means pain. Thanks to the great work of my physiotherapists and chiropractors, plus a few days of rest, I finally decided to race in Saalbach after all. But you only really know how well you’ve healed once you’re back on skis, and since there wasn’t much time to train, the moment of truth came in the first run in Saalbach. Of course you don’t go all in straight away, you hold back a little – but it went surprisingly well, so I was already thinking about a podium. Unfortunately the second run on the extremely rough slope didn’t go the way I’d imagined, but 5th place is still a great result considering the break from training.

In Madonna the pain was finally gone, but bib number one didn’t bring me much luck. You could see a thin layer of snow on the slope – not exactly ideal. After me came André Myhrer and Sebastian Foss-Solevåg, who didn’t even qualify for the second run. With 13th place in the first run I was still doing fine. In the second run it was simply “all in”, full risk. I switched to a ski model that’s clearly faster and that I had never used in a race. The risk paid off – 3rd place and my first podium of the season. Long may it continue.

And it does continue – in Oslo. On 31 December we travel to the Norwegian capital for the parallel slalom. We’ll celebrate New Year’s Eve there as a team, but no big party is planned, because on 1 January at 4:30 pm it’s “head to head” for World Cup points at Holmenkollen. A parallel slalom is something very special. You can hardly prepare for it specifically. It comes down to a few hundredths, and you never know who you’ll be up against. You can post the second-best time overall and still be knocked out in the first round. A parallel slalom simply has its own rules. The key is to focus completely on yourself, which isn’t easy, because you always have your opponent in the corner of your eye. But who knows – maybe we’ll get to pop the champagne after the race, if not on New Year’s Eve. After the city event in Norway and a short break with my family, it’s on to Croatia for the next slalom in Zagreb.

So keep your fingers crossed for me in the new year too. I wish you and your families a happy New Year – and all of us lots of moments to celebrate together, hopefully soon with more podiums and as many World Cup points as possible.