taz: Ms Werdenigg, the Winter Games are about to begin with the Alpine speed races. Do you watch this on TV?
Nicola Werdenigg: I really enjoy watching this. I’m just interested. I really enjoy watching the women’s races. These fine athletes like Mikaela Shiffrin for example. I look at them with my expert eye. As a former racing runner, I follow every development. I am also a sports educator and studied sports science. That’s my profession and that’s why the races are exciting for me.
taz: Are you keeping your fingers crossed for the Austrians?
Werdenigg: I really don’t care which nation wins. I don’t know national feelings. It just fascinates me when there a Frenchman like Cyprien Sarazzin brought something new into the downhill world last year. Whoever wins in Kitzbühel or is in the lead doesn’t really matter. Seeing a new level being reached is what interests me.
In the interview: Nicola Werdenigg
Born Nicola Spieß in Innsbruck in 1958, she was part of the Austrian alpine team in the World Cup from 1973 to 1979. At the Olympic Games in Innsbruck in 1976 she came fourth in the downhill. In 2017, she made it public that she was raped by members of the team as a 16-year-old. Since then she has been fighting against abuse of power, violence and discrimination – not just in sport.
taz: This is how you can endure the masculine downhill madness that is staged every year at the Streif.
Werdenigg: The Streif can’t do anything about it. This is just a departure. My mother also won it in the early 1950s. But this is simply a terrible production today. Things are so testosterone-heavy and nationalistic in the Austrian commentary booths that I have to shake my head more and more every year.
taz: How has this developed over the last few decades?
Werdenigg: This is an Austrian specialty, that Alpine racing has been so completely charged up. It had its origins in the post-war period, when my mother was still in the national team. Austria was looking for a national identity. People saw themselves as victims of Hitler and didn’t want to see the pictures in which the leader was happily waved. When people began to create new areas of identity, alpine racing quickly played an important role.
taz: Your mother witnessed that.
Werdenigg: Yes, and her role was clearly defined. The women in this Austrian ski team should be as modest as possible. And the men were portrayed as the farmers, the wild dogs. It should be as apolitical as possible so that no one brings up the Nazi past, which the ski association has not really come to terms with to this day.
taz: Then came the 1956 Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, where Toni Sailer won three gold medals for Austria.
Werdenigg: That was the first absolute highlight. Toni Sailer was portrayed as a real hero. With all the trimmings. He was omnipresent in the media…
taz: … and is being celebrated again these days, although it has been known since 2018 that he was investigated for rape in Poland in 1974. A square in his home town of Kitzbühel has just been named after him.
Werdenigg: Today, as then, he is presented as a hero. And now we have Toni-Sailer-Platz and on the occasion of his 90th birthday, something from his heroic saga is being re-cooked every other day on Austrian television. There are critical voices in these documentaries, but they are by far not the majority. A lot of things have been worked on. Now there should be some peace and quiet. If everyone complains that their idol is being tarnished, why don’t they just let him rest in peace instead of further exalting him.
taz: This homage will continue in Cortina.
Werdenigg: Of course it continues and that’s not a minor matter, it’s highly political.
taz: They made it public in 2017 that you were raped by members of the Austrian ski team. The revelations fell on open ears at the height of the #MeToo movement. There seems to be no more openness.
Werdenigg: Yes, you often hear someone say: Now let’s let the grass grow over the matter. But there is already a countermovement that wants to prevent this at all costs. I try to be as present as possible, to stand up to it wherever I can. Because bad things still happen. This doesn’t just apply to skiing. We have this children’s village scandal in Austria right now.
taz: It’s about violence and abuse in Austrian SOS Children’s Villages.
Werdenigg: And we are always dealing with the same structures where honorable men, after revelations, often have no choice but to say: ‘That can’t be true, we can’t believe it.’ It’s always the same mechanism.
taz: Has nothing happened in the Austrian Ski Association since your revelations?
Werdenigg: There is already greater awareness of the topic today. And above all: it is no longer there Peter Schröcksnadel at work as patriarch…
taz: … who was ÖSV President from 1990 to June 2021 …
Werdenigg: … but the structure is still patriarchal, even though a woman is president of the association for the first time in 120 years. These structures cannot be changed overnight. The awareness of looking at where abuse of power turns into sexual violence must first be created. Rape doesn’t happen overnight. Something like this has its basis in hierarchies and unevenness.
taz: Last season there was a discussion about the harsh tone of the Austrian women’s coach Roland Assinger. Although a world champion was one of his harshest critics, he was allowed to remain in office.
Werdenigg: This has been bothering me for almost two years. Exactly a year ago the topic really came to the fore. And what is the result? The performance stops. A number of women are injured. You are vulnerable. There is simply not enough respect for female athletes. Gone are the days when you could rely on an army of young athletes to raise them to the top. That’s different today. Many parents cannot afford the expensive fun of ski racing. In order for young people to come, they would have to be treated better. This is how they are scared away.
taz: Does the mood change? Are the athletes becoming more confident?
Werdenigg: Something is slowly happening. Six months ago I received a letter from a very young athlete. She wrote very openly. It was about psychological violence, discrimination, bullying, sometimes grinding methods in training, lack of appreciation, but also offensiveness and sexist language. The whole package.
taz: What makes dealing with it so difficult?
Werdenigg: While the athletes work on progressing their careers, there are no space within the structures in which they can be heard. The individual counts for nothing, there are enough competitors. And if they appear as a group? This is particularly difficult. The young athletes don’t know that. They are socialized into the competitive sports system and don’t grow up among teenagers in Vienna who go to a feminist demonstration every week. That doesn’t mean they lack awareness. But they know that if they raise their voices now, they could lose their careers.
taz: And that’s important to them.
Werdenigg: That’s why they got involved in the system, yes. They know they have to work. And I also have to say that I advise a lot of people who want to go public with their stories. But 90 percent of the people who contact me are actually not advanced enough for that. Care is taken to keep everything anonymous so that no conclusions can be drawn about the person concerned. But even if you do that, it triggers anew those affected who have not yet come to terms with their difficult experiences. Until someone has finished therapy and is at peace with themselves, going out in public is incredibly difficult.
taz: You have established yourself as a contact person for those affected by abuse. How many people reach out to you to date?
Werdenigg: It’s not just female skiers, but many people in general who are affected by abuse of power. In addition to athletes, there are also relatives and people close to athletes. In the wake of the scandals surrounding the SOS Children’s Villages, a bubble has emerged in Austria. Then there were immediately a few calls in which there was talk of grievances at the schools. As soon as a case is in the media, people contact me with observations. Then it dies down again. The urge to express yourself quickly cools down again.
taz: They probably then feel the power of the structures, which know how to defend themselves against the accusations in their own way.
Werdenigg: It’s not just the structures that you have to compete against. What should also be taken into account are family members, spouses and children who are also affected. This is a generational issue. Abuse can have long lasting effects.
taz: Back to the young athlete who wrote to you. Did she stay loyal to the sport?
Werdenigg: This very young athlete wrote her letter in a style that made me sit there and say: Wow! It has to be a highly intelligent young woman who has something on her mind and yet can’t really fight it. A clever person who sees through everything that has happened to him and still loves the sport so much that he accepts a lot.