Athlete Bios
Alpine Skiing
Germany's Riesch threatens queen of the hill Vonn
Last Updated: Friday, February 5, 2010 | 12:21 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Maria Riesch of Germany takes first place during the women's downhill World Cup event on January 30, 2010 in St. Moritz, Switzerland. (Christopher Pallot/Getty Images)Nearly six feet tall, Germany’s Maria Riesch is an imposing figure on a ski slope, a powerful and elegant ski racer with a long athletic résumé. One of the three female ski racers in the world, Riesch is also a nationally ranked tennis player and a competitive cyclist.
For the last few years, while Riesch has collected multiple World Cup victories and won the 2009 world championship gold medal in slalom, she has probably been best known as the racer giving the closest chase to the two-time World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn of the United States. Complementing the Vonn comparison is Riesch’s close friendship with her rival, whom she has known since 2000, when the two were teenage sensations at the junior world championships.
Five years ago, Riesch, feeling badly that Vonn was spending Christmas by herself in Europe, invited her to the Riesch home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the holiday. Vonn has continued to visit the Riesches every Christmas since.
“I don’t even have to ask anymore,” Vonn said. “I know where I’m going to be at Christmas.” Vonn has returned the favour, taking Riesch to the gigantic Mall of America near Vonn’s home outside Minneapolis-St. Paul. Vonn and Riesch have also vacationed together.
Riesch, 25, has been in hot pursuit of Vonn for the last several years and last season was emblematic of how narrow the competition has become. Vonn won the 2008-9 overall World Cup title, while Riesch was second. Vonn won the season-long downhill title and Riesch was third. Riesch was the slalom champion and Vonn was third. Vonn was second in the combined and Riesch was fourth. They are now on race podiums so often that cameramen working at the finish usually have to tell them to stop talking to each other so a decent photo of both looking forward can be captured. Vonn and Riesch are each fluent in English and German.
“We live the same life in many ways and that’s probably why we’re so close,” said Riesch, whose younger sister Susanne is also a World Cup racer. “I have a lot of media requests and so does she. We have to do fashionlike photo shoots and we get pulled in many directions for many reasons. We know this life in a way that others do not.”
Riesch, however, is hopeful the common storyline will be reversed.
“I am not upset that she has been beating me overall and in the speed events,” Riesch said referring to the downhill and super-G races. “She is a great racer. But I am trying to do more than be the one a step behind her. I don’t know how it would be if things were the other way around, but I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”
Although the Vancouver Games will be Reisch’s first Olympics — she was injured in 2006 — she will be a favourite in the super-combined and the slalom and a top medal contender in the downhill and super-G. The tallest woman in the field, and one of the fastest, she will be hard to miss.
