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Sophia felt lots of emotions flooding her as she made her way into the building, where the team came together. When she entered the hotel, a group of women immediatly made their way over to the girl. Sophia recognized Cornelia Hütter, Mirjam Puchner, Stephanie Venier and Franziska Gritsch, some of her new fellow members of the Austrian Team.
"Heyy, you must be Sophia, nice to meet you!" Cornelia exclaimed, holding her hand out for the younger girl to take. "We heard a lot about you!" Franziska added.
"Only good things I hope." Sophia replied, making the brown haired girl laugh. The two were about the same height and when the girl smiled at her she already knew that they would get on well. "Only positive things." she affirmed. "This must be pretty overwhelming for you but you'll get used to it quickly." Mirjam states. "But don't worry, we'll take you under our wings!" Cornelia smiled, making the newbie feel welcome.
The four girls showed Sophia around the hotel, introduced her to important people such as physios or trainers and roughly explained the processes of race weeks to her. Sophia immediately felt welcome and comfortable around the other girls and her nervousness disappeared for the most part.
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During pre-season training in Ushuaia, Argentina, Schwab noticed once again how pleasant all her new team-mates, even the austrian male skiers, were. She was able to learn something from many of them, but Feller and Kriechmayr in particular gave her lots of good tips. She spent many hours training with the male skiers, who quickly became like brothers to her.
Even now, she was on the chairlift with Marco Schwarz, Manuel Feller and another skier from their team named Otmar. "How about a little race down?" Marco suggested with a grin. -"I'm in" - "Me too" Otmar hesitated, but then reluctantly agreed. As they left the chairlift, the four of them agreed on the destination and got ready. Then Manuel started the Countdown. "Ready? three, two, one, GO!"
The four of them shot down the slope at high speed, causing other skiers to look after them in disbelief. Marco quickly took the lead, with Manuel and Sophia close behind him and Otmar at the end. "Wow, y'all are slow!" Marco screamed. The others laughed but just a few meters later Sophia saw her chance to take the lead. On a rise, she took the right-hand path instead of the straight one on the left, which contained a small ramp. She jumped off and tried to get gain balance for the landing, which she just managed.
At bonebreaking speed, she rejoined the rest of her group, this time with her in the lead. "Wow, y'all are so slow!" she turned her head to them, mocking Marco and almost overlooking a group of skiers who had just got off another chairlift. She just managed to swerve to the left to avoid knocking down a skier of the group who was standing slightly abroad. The man seemed shocked at the group racing past them and Sophia shouted a brief apology in his direction, which resulted in Manuel and Marco catching up to her. It was a close race until the end, but Marco managed to finish first, Sophia a close second and Manuel third. Otmar was the last to cross the finish line. Sophia tried to take a deep breath, as the race was pretty exhausting, but when she looked at the other three, everyone burst out laughing.
"That was insane!" Sophia laughed, trying to catch her breath. "You almost knocking over the Swiss Team was insane!" Otmar teased. - "That was the Swiss team?"
"Well, that would have been one competitor less for you," the girl said ironically, with no intention to actually harm anyone. "Yeah, and one Austrian driver less. Losses on both sides." Marco, who referred to her, smiled. "Sometimes you have to make sacrifices." Sophia joked "I would have done all that just for you."
Marco rolls his eyes with a smile while Manuel shoves her lightly on the shoulder. "It's good to know that you would do that for us." The Girl laughs as they ski to the next lift. -"Of course, everything for the team."
