Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Peter Fill

Peter Fill
Peter Fill in February 2011
Personal information
Born (1982-11-12) 12 November 1982 (age 42)
Brixen, South Tyrol, Italy
OccupationAlpine skier
Height175 cm (5 ft 9 in)
Skiing career
DisciplinesDownhill, Super-G, Combined
ClubCS Carabinieri[1]
World Cup debut7 March 2002 (age 19)
Retired1 February 2020
Websitepeter-fill.com
Olympics
Teams4 (2006, 2010, 2014, 2018)
Medals0
World Championships
Teams7 (200313, 2017)
Medals2 (0 gold)
World Cup
Seasons17 (20022018)
Wins3 (2 DH, 1 SG)
Podiums22 (13 DH, 5 SG, 4 AC)
Overall titles0 – (6th in 2007, 2017)
Discipline titles3 – (2 DH, 1 AC)
Medal record
Men's alpine skiing
Representing  Italy
International alpine ski competitions
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
World Championships 0 1 1
World Junior Championships 1 0 1
Total 1 1 2
World Cup race podiums
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
Downhill 2 6 5
Super-G 1 2 2
Combined 0 2 2
Total 3 10 9
World Championships
Silver medal – second place 2009 Val-d'Isère Super-G
Bronze medal – third place 2011 Garmisch Combined
Fill at Val Gardena in December 2013

Peter Fill (born 12 November 1982) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from northern Italy.[2] Born in Brixen, South Tyrol, he formerly competed in all disciplines, and later focused on the speed events of downhill, super-G, and combined. Fill won the World Cup season title in downhill in 2016 and in 2017, and the combined title in 2018.

Career

Fill is an all-round skier. In the 2007 season, Fill was among the overall leaders for the overall World Cup title, the first Italian since Alberto Tomba to rank in the overall top ten.

Fill learned to ski at the age of 3 with the help of his first teacher Frieda Senoner. He achieved his first successes during his middle-school years, while he was coached by Peter Thomaseth. In 1997/98 he joined the Seiser Alm training center, where he was coached by his uncle Arnold. In the same year he joined the B-Pool of the Bolzano-Bozen ski team (coached by Sepp Steinwandter). One year later he advanced to the A-Pool under Stephan Feichter. In 1999, he won every discipline at the National Junior Championships and returned home with four gold medals; he was called "the phenomenon" by the Italian press.[3]

In 2000, Fill joined the national team for the first time. His coach was Ernst Pfeifhofer, who continued as his coach for the following year in the Italian B-Team. At the same time he became a member of the Carabinieri sportsgroup. As a junior in 2001, he achieved his first important success on an international level, a bronze medal in the super-G at the Junior World Championships.

In 2002/03 he was part of the A-Team of Flavio Roda for the first time. In February 2002, Fill won the World Juniors and, as a result, took part in his first super-G race of World Cup on 7 March 2002 at Altenmarkt in Austria, where he placed 12th outpacing the Norwegian Lasse Kjus by one hundredth of a second. While Fill's strengths are the downhill and super-G, he is also competitive in the technical disciplines. On 13 January 2006 he stood 3rd on the Ski World Cup podium of the super combined race in Wengen (Switzerland).

During the 2006 and 2007 World Cup seasons, Fill had seven podiums: four in downhill, two in super-G, and a combined, but no wins. On March 21, 2007, he became Italian Champion in multiple disciplines (twice in super-G and once in giant slalom), bringing his career total of national championships to 3.

During the 2008 season, he was unable to reach the podium but managed to place in the top ten 10 on six occasions. On 29 November 2008 in Lake Louise (Canada) he won his first World Cup competition, beating Swiss Carlo Janka and Swede Hans Olsson, becoming the seventh Italian in World Cup history to win a downhill competition.

On 4 February 2009, he won the silver medal in super-G during the World Championships in Val-d'Isère (France) on the icy and steep slope Face del Bellevarde. He managed to place himself before the three-time World Champion Aksel Lund Svindal, but was not fast enough to beat the Swiss Didier Cuche. His medal was the only one won by the Azzurri in the men's competitions.[4]

Fill won his second World Cup race in 2016, the downhill at Kitzbühel, on a difficult dark and windy day on the Streif that ended the season of overall leader Aksel Lund Svindal.[5] Fill went on to become the first Italian to win the World Cup downhill title, finishing 10th at the last downhill of the season in St. Moritz in March 2016 to finish 26 points ahead of Svindal.[6]

Personal

Fill is a cousin of retired giant slalom racer and fellow Kastelruther Denise Karbon. After junior high school, he started working as an auto body mechanic while attending a vocational school, which he left after becoming more involved in alpine skiing competitions.[7] His mother tongue is German but he is also fluent in Italian and English. His idol in everyday life is his uncle Norbert Rier, leader of the Kastelruther Spatzen (a well-known folk group, especially in German-speaking countries) who dedicated the song "Wiedermal a super Zeit" to Fill for his silver medal in super-G at the World Championships in Val-d'Isère in 2009.[8]

Since 2007, Fill's manager has been Andreas Goller,[9] who previously represented Kristian Ghedina.[10] His ski technician is South-Tyrolean Sepp Kuppelwieser (who was ski man for Kjetil André Aamodt for ten years).

During the 2009 season, Atomic, Briko, Finstral, and Leki, as official sponsors and suppliers, decided to reward Fill for his excellent results achieved during the season, offering him the chance to win the Artega GT sport car if he were to capture the downhill at the World Cup finals in Sweden at Åre in March.[11]

World Cup results

Season titles

Season Discipline
2016 Downhill
2017 Downhill
2018 Combined

Season standings

Season Age Overall Slalom Giant
slalom
Super-G Downhill Combined
2002 19 114 33
2003 20 65 28 34 45
2004 21 40 44 16 33 15
2005 22 30 36 30 19 8
2006 23 16 50 33 8 14 6
2007 24 6 25 9 4 7
2008 25 26 36 27 14 10
2009 26 10 31 10 9 8
2010 27 104 38
2011 28 21 19 17 9
2012 29 35 25 22 17
2013 30 38 17 24 21
2014 31 15 10 12 7
2015 32 34 20 20
2016 33 10 9 1 16
2017 34 6 5 1 29
2018 35 16 14 11 1

Race podiums

  • 3 wins (2 DH, 1 SG)
  • 22 podiums (13 DH, 5 SG, 4 AC)
Season Date Location Discipline Place
2006 13 Jan 2006  Switzerland  Wengen, Switzerland Super combined 3rd
20 Jan 2006 Austria Kitzbühel, Austria Super-G 2nd
15 Mar 2006 Sweden Åre, Sweden Downhill 3rd
2007 25 Nov 2006 Canada Lake Louise, Canada Downhill 3rd
20 Dec 2006 Austria Hinterstoder, Austria Super-G 2nd
29 Dec 2006 Italy Bormio, Italy Downhill 2nd
13 Jan 2007  Switzerland  Wengen, Switzerland Downhill 3rd
2009 29 Nov 2008 Canada Lake Louise, Canada Downhill 1st
16 Jan 2009  Switzerland  Wengen, Switzerland Super combined 2nd
2014 6 Dec 2013 United States Beaver Creek, USA Downhill 3rd
7 Dec 2013 Super-G 3rd
2016 28 Nov 2015 Canada Lake Louise, Canada Downhill 2nd
29 Nov 2015 Super-G 3rd
23 Jan 2016 Austria Kitzbühel, Austria Downhill 1st
2017 3 Dec 2016 France Val-d'Isère, France Downhill 2nd
27 Jan 2017 Germany Garmisch, Germany Downhill 3rd
28 Jan 2017 2nd
25 Feb 2017 Norway Kvitfjell, Norway Downhill 2nd
26 Feb 2017 Super-G 1st
15 Mar 2017 United States Aspen, USA Downhill 2nd
2018 29 Dec 2017 Italy Bormio, Italy Super combined 2nd
12 Jan 2018  Switzerland  Wengen, Switzerland Super combined 3rd

World Championship results

  Year    Age   Slalom   Giant 
 slalom 
Super-G Downhill Combined
2003 20 DNF1 13 20 11
2005 22 14 24 DNF
2007 24 23 14 11 13
2009 26 2 14 5
2011 28 9 14 3
2013 30 14 12
2015 32
2017 34 11 9 DNF1

Olympic results

  Year    Age   Slalom   Giant 
 slalom 
Super-G Downhill Combined
2006 23 13 19 9
2010 27 DSQ 15 DNF2
2014 31 8 7 DNF2
2018 35 DNF 6 DNF2

See also

References