RooMXMatez TM: GOLDEN FOX

GOLDEN FOX

By Unknown Wednesday, February 10, 2016 Sport

Golden Fox is a traditional international women's alpine skiing world cup competition. It is being held in our dear home city of Maribor, which is hosting the competition since 1964. Usually we get to see the best women alpine skiers beating it out for the win in slalom and giant slalom. And then in tradition of Golden Fox, the best skier, based on both races, takes home the title of the Golden Fox.

In the last years we have witnessed bad luck with the competition itself. Main reason for this is the weather. Either we don't have enough snow or we have it and there happens to be rainy or it is even too warm and the snow can't hold for both of the races. In its long history the competition was cancelled only twice, in 1998 and in 2011. But many times it was moved to Kranjska Gora. In the last ten years this happened three times, in 2007, 2012 and also in 2014.

The best skier at the Golden Fox ever is definitely Vreni Schneider, who took home the title of the best Fox in town seven times. Of course, also one of the best skiers in Maribor, especially in the last fifteen years, was Anja Pärson. Out of the Slovenian skiers, the best in Maribor was Mateja Svet. In the 90s we had a lot of good skiers in slalom and also in giant slalom. The most notable names from those years are Urška Hrovat, Špela Pretnar, Alenka Dovžan and Katja Koren. Those were the best years at Golden Fox if you ask me. I was a little girl at that time and I remember those winter weekends at Pohorje like it was only a year ago. The atmosphere was just amazing. The girls had their own song, with which the crowd was cheering them on. To me personally, one of the best memories of my childhood.

After that golden era of Slovenian skiing there was quite some time, where we didn't have brilliant results in skiing. But at the Golden Fox in 2009 we got a win at the giant slalom. This was one of the first wins for Tina Maze, who since then became one of the best skiers in the world ever. She also became the most successful Slovenian skier of all times. She became the Golden Fox in Maribor in 2013, when she won in slalom. With Tina Maze, Golden Fox became more fun and interesting for the crowds again. We had someone to cheer on again. I believe that because of Tina's successes even more people came to Maribor to cheer on her and also on other Slovenian skiers, competing at home.

Well, this year, the 52nd Golden Fox... it was all a big question mark for quite some time. Then a couple of weeks before the competition itself, the organizers got a green light for the competition. I know I was happy about that, because after all these years and competition's history it means a lot to me to be able to go watch it live. We all knew the weather was supposed to be quite warm for this time of the year, but everybody remained positive. On Saturday at giant slalom, the weather was perfect for the crowds. The sun was shining, everyone was in high spirits and despite Tina Maze having a break this season, we had a reason to believe in Ana Drev, who had some good results this season so far. She made us all proud and came in second in the end. I also have to mention this, January 30 was a big day for Slovenian athletes. Not only did Ana came in second in giant slalom. Other medals that day included Boštjan Kline's silver medal in downhill, Rok Marguč's bronze medal in parallel slalom in snowboarding, Ema Klinec's bronze medal in ladies' ski jumping and of course a triple win for our ski jumping heroes in Sapporo – Peter Prevec won, his brother Domen came in second and Robert Kranjec in third. But Sunday's slalom on the other hand didn't have as much luck. The race was cancelled only after less than twenty-five skiers. Because of the warm weather in the days leading to competition and on Saturday, the course just wasn't good enough to make it happen. As someone, who's been going to those races year after year, I have to say we can be satisfied that we got at least one race done in those conditions. At least we had one fun day at Maribor's traditional Golden Fox, and what a beautiful day it was.

Jana Letonja

Contributing journalist