Marielle Goitschel: “Shiffrin, I would put her in the wind with my fingers in my nose”

The greatest winner of French women’s skiing, Marielle Goitschel spoke with AFP a few days before the Courchevel-Méribel World Championships (February 6-19). The seven-time world champion notably returned, with her outspokenness, on Mikaela Shiffrin’s winning record but also on the France team which will participate in the Worlds at home. “Today’s skiing, I tell myself that it’s made for me. In super-G (created after his career, editor’s note) I wouldn’t have left a single medal! And in slalom, so there, untouchable. Shiffrin, I’d put her in the wind with my fingers in my nose,” declared the 77-year-old ex-skier, who has lost none of her legendary banter.

“To compare, you need the same plan”

On the other hand, Marielle Goitschel finds her time incomparable to today’s skiing with all the technical and technological developments: “We have to stop saying the record, the greatest of all time, is zero. To compare, you need the same plan. » With eleven world medals, she shares the post-war women’s record with Sweden’s Anja Pärson and American star Mikaela Shiffrin, close to becoming the most successful skier in the World Cup, men and women combined. Double Olympic champion, Goitschel has lost none of her winning mentality and still cannot conceive of defeat: “Sometimes I hear things, “oh the beautiful 10th place”, But no ! Those who say that will never succeed. When I was second, I was mortified, unless it was behind my sister Christine. »

Fan of Clément Noël… and of biathlon

In her program, Marielle Goitschel obviously checked the Courchevel-Méribel Worlds which will start on Monday. Invited, she should go there for the feminine giant even if she admits to knowing only a few Blue who will be in the running : “I don’t know the composition of the women’s team apart from Romane Miradoli and Tessa Worley”. On the other hand, she will be behind one of her favorite skiers, Olympic slalom champion Clément Noël. “He comes from the Vosges, like my mother, and from the Val d’Isère ski club, like Killy and us the Goitschels. His style is marvelous.” she relishes.

If skiing is still very close to her heart, she also takes great pleasure in adding a rifle to it: ” I’m going […] surprise, I watch biathlon. I know everything by heart, Jacquelin, Simon, the wonderful little Jeanmonnot. I am a complete fan ». So, in parallel with the World Ski Championships, Marielle Goitschel will also be in place in front of her screen to follow the French in Oberhof during the Biathlon World Championships (February 8 to 19).