© Sports report
As a worthy start to a competitive summer season, eight athletes from HSV Red Bull Salzburg found the last two weeks, a major international highlight of this year will take place.
At the 45th Military World Championships in Güssing, the Salzburg Army athletes Julia Schosser, Sebastian Graser, Manuel Sulzbacher, Kevin Wagner, Sophie Grill, Michael Urban, Joachim Knauss and Michael Hribernik, as well as their trainer Alexander Janko, show their perfect form in the midst of the extremely strong competition . Sebastian Graser won a world championship title in skydiving, his young team colleague Sophie Grill took home three gold medals in the juniors. Michael Urban also received a bronze medal in the junior category “Style” and in the overall ranking.
After the successful state championship two weeks ago, some of the HSV Red Bull Salzburg athletes started with the military world championship and thus a major international competition in this summer skydiving season. The 45th edition of the Austrian Armed Forces World Championship, which is held in Austria every 10 years, found an optimal venue today in Güssing in Burgenland. A total of 355 athletes and referees from 35 nations took part in the World Championships in Burgenland, fighting for the coveted title of “Military World Champion” in the disciplines of target jumping, formation and style.
Almost the entire Austrian team was represented by HSV Red Bull Salzburg athletes around trainer Alexander Janko. Sebastian Graser, Julia Schosser, Sophie Grill, Manuel Sulzbacher, Kevin Wagner, Joachim Knauß, Michael Urban and Michael Hribernik not only held up the flag for their home club in Salzburg and, thanks to their top performances, did not disappoint at the home World Cup either.
Right from the start, the Salzburger Parachutist was able to keep up well with the extremely strong international competition and fought for medals in the front ranks.
Already on the third day they booked a bronze medal with Michael Urban in the figure jumping of the men’s juniors, and he also took 3rd place in the overall ranking of the juniors. The young Tyrolean, a member of the HSV Red Bull Salzburg club, showed a top performance and deservedly won the two medals.
Two days later, after an extremely exciting competition, the men’s skydiving was decided and ended with a sensation for Salzburg. Sebastian Graser won the first gold medal for Austria in his favorite discipline. With an impressive total deviation of only 3 cm, he showed not only his impressive athletic form but also strong nerves and can therefore look forward to Austria’s first world championship title since 1986. The Elsbethner finished the “Style” discipline with 16th place and thus finished the overall ranking of both disciplines in 7th place. “I’m incredibly proud of this competition, not only of my performance, but of the entire Austrian delegation. We have achieved incredible things in every respect and can be justifiably proud of ourselves. The title means so much to me because to be able to win the world title in front of my family and on home soil is still incredible to this point. At the beginning of this season I said that this title is my biggest dream and now I was able to realize it, it’s just amazing,” says Graser, happy about his and his team’s performance.
His teammates Kevin Wagner (Rank 23 “Accuracy”, Rank 67 “Style”, Rank 44 overall), Manuel Sulzbacher (Rank 42 “Accuracy”, Rank 58 “Style”, Rank 47 overall), Michael Urban (Rank 87 “Accuracy” , Rank 26 “Style”, Rank 35 overall), Michael Hribernik (Rank 87 “Accuracy”, Rank 42 “Style”, Rank 49 overall) and Joachim Knauss (Rank 90 “Accuracy”, Rank 67 “Style”, Rank 61 overall ) also shows very good performances, which, however, are beaten by the extremely strong competition of the 135 men’s starting field in their parade discipline “target jumping”.
In the team classification, Salzburg unfortunately had to admit defeat in the battle for third place. Together with their Austrian colleague Christian Forstner, the six HSV Red Bull Salzburg athletes as a team achieved an excellent 7th place in the target jumping and thus 5th CISM overall place (“Accuracy”, “Formation” and “Style”) behind the teams from Germany, Czech Republic, Brazil and Spain.
One of the youngest members of the team, Sophie Grill from Puch, can also look forward to three world championship titles. She won the Accuracy discipline in the juniors by a total margin of 34cm and ended her third World Championship with an impressive 12th place in the women’s total finish jumping competition, one place ahead of her teammate Julia Schosser (35cm margin overall). Things also went well for the young woman from Salzburg in the “Style” discipline, where she clinched her gold in the women’s junior ranking, which resulted in the third gold medal in the overall ranking of the two junior women’s disciplines. “So many emotions that I was allowed to experience, just unbelievable! I couldn’t be happier to be able to celebrate such a great success at a home World Cup. I can’t find the words, it’s just an indescribable feeling. It’s all the nicer that our entire team performance exceeded all expectations,” says the 23-year-old, overwhelmed by her world championship titles.
Her teammate, Julia Schosser, took 12th place in a very strong field of 40 athletes from all over the world in the “Accuracy” category. Together with the fifth place in the “Style” category, this results in the excellent 5th place in the overall ranking of the disciplines.
The HSV Red Bull Salzburg formation team called “Aerodynamix” (Sebastian Graser, Manuel Sulzbacher, Kevin Wagner and Michael Hribernik) also put in a strong performance at its first world championship in this discipline. The level turned out to be very high, because all teams showed very good performances. The Salzburgers made it to the semi-finals and were able to finish with a very good 10th place in what was still a rather new discipline for them. They exceeded their own expectations with an average of 18.4 points, which is why they can be very satisfied. Hannes Kloiber provided a cameraman for the impressive documentation of the formations.
After this successful international start, the parachutists continue to do so in quick succession. The next competitions will take place in just over two weeks with the next stops of the World Cup series in Slovenia and Italy, before the penultimate World Cup stop in Thalgau (August 26th to 28th) is all about Salzburg again. At this stop, which is also international, the local heroes want to prove their world class, as in previous years, and score important points for the World Cup final sprint.
press info
HSV Red Bull Salzburg
06/29/2022