"It was a question of time"

Feller ends his giant slalom career

Feller has not had any major successes in the giant slalom this year.(Bild: Christof Birbaumer)

Manuel Feller will not be competing in the giant slalom in future and will focus purely on his specialist discipline of slalom. The Tyrolean made the announcement after a botched race in Hafjell.

Feller went to the start in Hafjell with a health problem. After the first run, the 32-year-old Tyrolean was only in 24th place, and he also lost his strength in the second run and was no longer able to move forward. In the end, he had to settle for 26th place. "It was a fight from top to bottom, but I knew that beforehand," said Feller in the ORF interview and then dropped the bombshell: "One last point to finish my giant slalom career. It was always a question of time anyway. I would have loved to have competed in the Olympic Games as a finale, that would have been the real plan. But everything comes to an end at some point."

Manuel Feller only skied behind in Hafjell.(Bild: GEPA)

"I'm not doing this to myself"
He is no longer in the top 30 of the RTL World Cup and no longer has any FIS points. So the decision has been made. "I'm certainly not going to go around with bib number 50. I simply won't do that to myself. From that point of view, the decision was made more because of the situation," said the Tyrolean. His best result this season was a 15th place in Adelboden, but he missed out on qualifying for the home World Championships in Saalbach. Overall, the 32-year-old took four second and three third places in World Cup giant slaloms.

If Feller reaches the 500-point mark in the slalom next season, which would guarantee him a better starting number, "then I would like to have another good race as a finale in the giant slalom," he said. "If that's not the case, today will be my last giant slalom race. It went well for a long time and I was able to celebrate a lot of great successes."