First of all, I hope you all got off to a good start in 2019. New Year’s Eve was rather low-key for us racers, of course, because on 1 January 2019 important World Cup points were up for grabs at Holmenkollen in Oslo.

At the parallel slalom in the Norwegian capital I nailed the perfect run in the first round, and with the fastest time I would have won the race overall. But as I wrote in my last blog post, an event like this has its own rules. In the second run I risked too much. I was already well ahead of my opponent André Myhrer, but then I made a mistake, so I had to settle for sixth place. I felt confident on my skis and had great speed, but you can’t win events like this without aggression.

From the Norwegian capital we went to the Croatian one. In Zagreb the setup wasn’t right and I skied too aggressively. How can that happen? In autumn, the intensive preparation period, you only train on glaciers, so it’s hard to simulate winter conditions. Only during the race season can you draw real conclusions about your skis. Of course you’re prepared for that – we have the right ski ready for every eventuality and snow condition – but there’s relatively little time between runs to make the right choice. I put Zagreb behind me quickly: I took a day off, was a guest at Servus TV in Hangar-7, and then trained for two days at Lake Weissensee in Carinthia with my brother Mario, who kept an eye on my skiing. Now it’s off to Adelboden: travel on Friday, training on Saturday, and the race on Sunday. Even though there’s snow chaos everywhere, the race is confirmed, and one thing is clear: I’ll give it my all again and go for my first World Cup win of the season. So keep your fingers crossed for me.

Yours, Michi Matt