Ski crosser Gutensohn races across disciplines, decades (News Feature)

By Albert Otti Feb 16, 2010, 2:06 GMT

Vienna - At 43, other skiers have long retired. But Austria's former downhill racer Katharina Gutensohn is competing in the young Olympic discipline of ski cross, extending a long career full of twists and jumps.

A winner of the 1990 downhill World Cup and a silver downhill medallist at the 1985 world championships, Gutensohn has a relaxed attitude when it comes to the upcoming winter Games, the fourth in which she participates.

'I'm no longer so deadly serious,' she said, before adding: 'I am taking it seriously, but I no longer feel this pressure.'

Gutensohn, who comes from Kirchberg in the Tyrolean mountains, started her career as a downhill skier, scoring the first of eight World Cup race wins at the age of 18 in 1985.

She first showed an independent streak four years later when she decided to start racing for Germany after a fallout with her Austrian head coach.

Gutensohn retired in 1998 at the age of 31.

'I thought that's it,' she recalled, and did not imagine at the time that she would take part in another Olympic Games. 'But strange things do happen,' she said.

After her partner Wolfgang Auderer introduced her to ski cross, she won the first World Cup ski cross event she ever participated in five years ago.

It was the start of her comeback, this time again as an Austrian. Gutensohn came in second in the 2008/09 ski cross World Cup.

'The direct fight was fun,' she said about her first experience in the sport that pits four racers against each other simultaneously on runs full of jumps and turns.

Her long athletic experience is an advantage, as ski crossers must be able to judge situations ahead of time, and to react within split seconds. 'You have to know how far a jump will take you, how fast to take a turn, how much pressure to apply,' Gutensohn said.

But in the end, her age is not an issue in this sport, said the mother of two boys and a girl. 'It's only about results.'

Although the athlete is not a top contender for Olympic gold in Vancouver, she said ski cross races are unpredictable.

'In ski cross, everything can happen,' she added.