'There will be setbacks': How Manuel Feller is doing
After a challenging season, Manuel Feller pulled the plug early in spring and underwent surgery. Now the Kitz winner talks about his physical condition and his plans.
For Manuel Feller, the past ski season ended prematurely.
After a "mentally and physically very challenging" winter, the Tyrolean pulled the plug in March due to pain resulting from several slipped discs, a groin hernia, and pubic bone inflammation. Feller used the break, among other things, for surgical intervention on his back.
"It's gradually getting better, in everyday life it's already very good," Feller explained on Thursday at an ÖSV media event in Pörtschach. "During training, when I increase the load, the intensity, I feel it for a few days," the 33-year-old qualified. "But overall, it's heading in the right direction."
Feller expects setbacks
At the end of August/beginning of September, he'll go to Chile for two weeks for snow training. "I expect that I'll have one or two setbacks there. But I am confident that I'll be 100 percent ready for the first slalom."
This is also because the Olympic silver medalist in the team combination has competed in his last World Cup giant slalom and is now fully concentrating on the slalom. "Therefore, I have no stress."
Kitz gondola as "satisfaction for hard work"
With his victory in Kitzbühel last winter, Feller fulfilled a childhood dream. He now looks forward with joyful anticipation to the ceremony in the "Gamsstadt" when a gondola bearing his name will be put into circulation.
Family, friends, and his fan club will be present at the gondola's "handover." "The success is not solely attributable to me personally; an entire team stands behind it. It is a reward for the hard work of the last decade. To stand at the top of the podium in the three classic slaloms is something I wouldn't have imagined as a little boy. The Kitzbühel 'Gams' is the cherry on top."
