Keil, Iraschko, Seifriedsberger, Roider /fot. Stefan Diaz/

Ahead of the first World Cup season Ladies-Skijumping.com takes a close look at all national teams. We start this series with the Austrian team.

Austria's best athlete, World Champion Daniela Iraschko, had a knee surgery just a week ago. Most likely she will be be able to compete at the first World Cup competition in Lillehammer on December 3^rd. But it remains to be seen if this surgery affects her sporting prowess. Nevertheless the serial winner of the last few years is one of the big favorites for this first World Cup season.

With Jacqueline Seifriedsberger the Austrian team has another top class jumper. In the last winter she jumped on a very high level most of the time but also had to suffer some small setbacks, such as the 32 rank at the World Championships. But during this summer she performed better than ever before and -together with Iraschko- outperformed the rest of the field. She is also on the list of potential World Cup winners.

With Cornelia Roider and Katharina Keil the team has two jumpers in the second row, that are both able to see the second round regularly. Especially Roider showed in the last winter, that she could also finish among the top ten on a good day. Together with some jumpers of the large Austrian junior team, that mainly competes in the Ladies Cup, both should also have chances to win a medal in the team competition at the Junior World Championships.