Olympic nightmare comes true for Austrian men (News Feature)

By David Hein Feb 28, 2010, 1:28 GMT

Whistler, Canada - Not even reliable Benjamin Raich could come through for the Austrian men's alpine ski team as the giants of the sport crashed to a historic zero men's medals at the Winter Olympics.

The entire Austrian nation must have been holding its breath when Raich took his final run of Saturday's slalom. And then came a collective gasp of disbelief as the reigning Olympic and 2005 slalom world champion finished his run third with two racers left.

In the end, Raich's time was good for just fourth place. And his compatriot Marcel Hirscher was fifth.

The nightmare had officially come true - the Austrian alpine men skiers are leaving the 2010 Olympics without a single medal. And that just four years after they won eight medals at Turin - including two Raich golds and a podium sweep in the slalom.

'It's very disappointing for our team but we have to handle it. It's not easy,' said Raich.

'Normally the Austrian team always has a medal but this year it was impossible to catch one. It's hard but we have to accept it. We have been very successful in the World Cup, but not at this Olympics. It's hard to say why, I can't say.'

The zero men's medals eclipsed the previous worst showing from 1984 in Sarajevo where Anton Steiner saved red-white-red pride with the only medal - a downhill bronze.

Austria had otherwise won medals at every Winter Games at which they participated.

Still to say the Austrian men had a horrible 2010 Games is a bit unfair.

Mario Schieber claimed fourth place in the downhill while Hirscher, Romed Baumann and Raich finished fourth, fifth and sixth in the giant slalom.

And Raich was the top performer in the super combined and super-G, taking sixth and 14th place, respectively.

Over the course of the Olympics, the Austrian media has blasted the men's alpine team.

After the Austrians watched Swiss Didier Defago win the downhill and fail themselves to place on the downhill podium for the first time since 1994, the tabloid Oesterreich ran the headline 'Our downhill losers' while the mass-circulation Krone wrote 'Now the Swiss are really laughing at us!'

Following the super-g, Oesterreich splashed the headline 'Shame on you! It can't get any worse'.

The Austrians are bound to be lambasted even worse upon their return from Canada.

The Austrian Skiing Federation president Peter Schroecksnadel, however, on Saturday fended off criticism that the team's system is in shambles.

'What can you do? So many fourth placed finishes,' said Schröcksnadel, who watched Austria also finish fourth, fifth and sixth in the giant slalom, fourth in the downhill and sixth in the super combined.

'When somebody says that the system is over with, that is idiocy. Because nothing is the matter in the system with a fourth place. Things just didn't work out for the men.'

'Fourth and fifth after we were fourth, fifth and sixth in giant slalom. That is like the biggest penalty for us as coaches and the whole team,' said the Austrian men's coach Toni Giger.

'We just don't know what happened.'

That is not enough for the Austrian alpine fan base.