SNOW Alps 25-26 web - Flipbook - Page 48
PEOPLE
Changing Course
Jannick Sinner’s shift from the slopes to the court follows a storied
tradition. Meet the athletes who’ve mastered more than one arena.
by ADAM RUCK
T
hese days, most champions have been hard at it from
an early age, but a change of direction can still pay off.
Growing up in northern Italy’s mountainous South
Tirol, Jannik Sinner rated tennis third of his favourite sports,
behind skiing and football. As a junior slalom racer based out of
the Dolomites 3 Zinnen ski area, he was Italy’s number one for
his year group, but found himself increasingly disadvantaged
by a physique he describes as skinny, while his rivals put on
beef. So he switched to tennis, although it took him away from
home and snow at the difficult age of 13.
Sinner has no reason to regret the decision, and it gives lazy
commentators a go-to remark every time he changes direction
on a dime and smacks an inch perfect winner down the line. Ski
racer’s legs to the rescue again, they say knowingly. The man
himself will only admit that skiing may have helped his mental
attitude because, as he explains, “If you make one mistake in ski
racing, you lose”.
Novak Djokovic, who also spent his childhood winters
on skis, is more inclined to give credence to the ski-racer’s-
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legs theory. Novak’s career trajectory required no change of
direction, because the furry ball and strung racket were always
his preferred weapons. In his case, the problem was funding.
With the words You have a golden boy, Djokovic’s local tennis
coach told his ski-instructor father Srdjan to beg, borrow or
steal – whatever it took – to send Novak to the Niki Pilić Tennis
Academy in Munich. Extortionate loans were amply repaid.
Skiing from an early age can open doors to more than highlevel tennis. Chasing speed on the mountain is an obvious segue
to putting the hammer down on the race track, too.
“I’ve always been crazy about motorsport,” says Clara
Stiebleichinger, the 20-year-old ski racer from the Austrian
mountain village of Seefeld who spent last summer making a
name for herself on the Indian F4 scene. That being so, it was
an easy decision to put a budding ski career in the back seat
when the chance to spend a year studying in Paris came up, and
shift her competitive drive to the wheel of a sports car. “There
are no ski resorts in Paris,” she explains helpfully.
Aware of her passion, Clara’s parents gave her a week-long
