Benjamin Raich biography

Raich earned worldwide acclaim at age 18 when he received the slalom on the 1996 junior world championships. He returned the following 12 months to the junior world championships and took the gold within the GS. Raich earned his first World Cup factors in 1998, ending tenth within the GS occasion at Crans-Montana, Switzerland, and 96th total. The subsequent season he gained his first spot on a World Cup podium with a third-place end within the slalom at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, and he broke into the highest 10 total regardless of competing in just one downhill race.

At the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, Raich earned his first Olympic medal, a bronze, within the males’s mixed occasion. In a controversial ruling, he additionally was awarded the bronze within the slalom after Great Britain’s Alain Baxter failed a drug take a look at and forfeited his medal. Raich rose steadily within the rankings over the following three years. At the 2005 Alpine world championships in Bormio, Italy, he took first place within the mixed and the slalom, second place within the GS, and third within the tremendous G and the downhill. He amassed 1,454 factors within the 2004–05 World Cup standings and received the slalom, GS, and mixed titles, however he was edged out of the general title by American Bode Miller.

During the 2005–06 season main as much as the Olympics, Raich stood on the rostrum 10 occasions and even received the general World Cup title, however his debut in Turin on February 14, 2006, proved disappointing. After main the mixed occasion, he skied out of bounds and was disqualified, clearing the best way for American Ted Ligety to win the gold medal. Four days later Raich completed the tremendous G in twenty first place, greater than a full second off the tempo, however he got here again to win his first Olympic gold medal, within the GS on February 20. Three days earlier than his twenty eighth birthday, Raich collected his second gold, within the slalom. The Austrian males’s Alpine ski crew collected a complete of eight medals on the Games, however Raich supplied the crew’s solely golds.

Less than a month after Turin, Raich received his seventh gold (and twelfth medal) on the 2005–06 World Cup circuit and captured his first total World Cup title with a complete of 1,410 factors. He additionally received the World Cup season’s mixed and GS championships. At the 2007 Alpine world championships in Åre, Sweden, Raich earned a bronze medal within the tremendous mixed (one run of downhill and considered one of slalom on the identical day).

In 2010 Raich did not medal on the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, with a fourth-place end within the slalom his finest consequence, although he did handle to seize a mixed World Cup championship that 12 months. He received only a single World Cup race (a super-G occasion in February 2012) between that season and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the place he completed in seventh place within the large slalom and didn't full the slalom competitors. Raich retired from aggressive snowboarding in 2015.